


Theirs Was the Kingdom

by beckettemory



Series: Leporidae lagomorpha [2]
Category: Leverage, Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Alternate Universe - Teenagers, Archie Leach is a Bad Father, Finding New Names, Gen, On the Run, Past Abuse, Platonic Relationships, Road Trips, Thievery, autistic characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-05
Updated: 2017-01-05
Packaged: 2018-09-14 22:57:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9209015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beckettemory/pseuds/beckettemory
Summary: Danny Gillespie and Anna Leach were sixteen and fourteen when the first monster emerged from the Pacific. In the chaos that ensued all over the world they ran away from home and made their way to San Francisco to start new lives as scavengers named Eliot Spencer and Parker.And the whole city was theirs for the taking.





	1. Chapter 1

They were training at the dojo when the first Kaiju made landfall. 

Parker eyed Danny, her sparring partner, across the mat and smirked faintly just before darting forward and deftly dodging his reactive grab towards her. She used his reaction to spin around behind him and lock onto him, but her thin arms were no match for his much stronger hands, and he disengaged easily. She was speed, he was brawn. They were fairly evenly matched. 

Sensei chastised Parker from the far end of the room where he was helping another pair but happened to look up to see her go off-book. She didn’t feel bad or even properly chastised when he admonished her anymore. Sensei’s lessons were so strict, and all she wanted to do was fight how she wanted to fight. Danny, too, and that was what mostly kept them from getting to spar together most of the time; Sensei wouldn’t let them.  

Through the windows separating the dojo proper from the lobby, Danny saw a couple of panicked-looking parents hurry in before Parker’s movements pulled his attention back to her and he blocked her jab like he felt it coming. He made quick work of catching and holding her still for a moment so he could look back towards the lobby, where more parents were showing up. His eyes darted to the clock, and he saw that it wasn’t yet the end of class. Parents shouldn’t have been showing up yet to pick up their kids. 

Parker broke free and he held up a hand. “Wait,” he said, a little out of breath. 

She frowned but stilled, and followed his gaze to the lobby. 

“It’s only 3:45,” Parker said, her voice betraying her confusion. 

“Yeah,” Danny agreed. He looked back towards his best friend and then towards Sensei. 

He was about to get their teacher’s attention when Mei, the receptionist and Sensei's wife, stuck her head through the door. “Katsuro,” she called, looking haunted. 

Sensei immediately straightened up and excused himself. The class watched as he hurried out to the lobby. Only Danny and Parker had the vantage point to see clearly into the lobby, and they watched as Sensei joined Mei and the parents in the lobby, huddled nervously around the small television set behind the front desk. Mei and Sensei were talking, and Danny watched, horrified, as he saw his teacher’s usually steady hands tremble as he took off his glasses. 

The whole class had stopped sparring, and everyone except Parker and Danny were talking or goofing off. Parker and Danny locked eyes with each other, nodded, and slipped out into the lobby. 

The television’s volume was pretty low, a combination of the small size of the set and the worried tones of the parents around it drowning it out. Used to being invisible, Parker and Danny waded through the throng of adults until they could see the screen. 

Something-- _ what is that thing _ \--was tearing through a city. It was forty stories tall and had a head like an axe and shaky helicopter footage followed it as it plowed through whole buildings. The remains of a bridge-- _ the Golden Gate?! _ \--were visible behind the… thing.

Danny’s breath was knocked out of him and he heard Parker gasp. 

He reached out without looking and caught her searching, trembling fingers and held on. 

_ This is the end of the world.  _


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings in this chapter for: references to abuse by parental figures; mention of guns; brief creepy interactions between a minor and adult (nonexplicit, just hints); mention of kidnapping; general thievery; discussions of animal (kaiju) death

They left the dojo together, jumping into Danny’s truck and driving through chaotic streets to Archie’s house. Parker lived there, but she was adamant that it wasn’t her home. 

As they went through the front door Archie called out, “who is it?” from somewhere deeper in the house.

“It’s me,” Parker responded, and Danny watched as she folded in on herself to become Anna again, the way she did every day. 

“Anna?” Archie asked, sounding worried. They heard gentle thumpings of a cane and slippered feet on the wooden floors of the hallway. When Archie came into the front room he hurried right to Parker and pulled her into a hug. “Anna.”

She stiffened and made a face over Archie’s shoulder at Danny, keeping her arms down to her sides and waiting for him to end the hug. Danny shrugged sympathetically at her and waited, standing awkwardly off to the side. 

Finally, Archie let go and took a big step back, visibly composing himself as if embarrassed by his display of emotion. “Daniel, thank you for bringing her home,” he said, nodding formally at Danny. 

“It’s no problem,” Danny replied. “Knew she didn’t have a ride until later.” 

“Some trouble San Francisco is having,” Archie said vaguely, and Danny nodded solemnly, itching to be rid of him. 

His phone began ringing and he dug it out of the bottom of his backpack, scowling at the little screen before flipping it open. “Hello?” 

_ “Daniel, where the hell are you?” _ Marcie demanded. 

“Anna’s,” he responded calmly, waiting for his stepmother to get all of her hysterics out. Archie brushed past them and settled himself in his armchair. Parker leaned against the doorjamb, knowing for sure she wasn’t excused yet. 

_ “What in the hell are you doing there? Don’t you know there’s some kinda monster destroying the world?” _

He sighed inwardly. “Only San Francisco. Anna didn’t have a ride home so I gave her one. I was just tryin’ to do the right thing, Marcie,” he said, hoping he could appeal to her by parroting her own words back at her from their argument last week. 

It worked. Marcie was silent for a moment.  _ “You better be home before your daddy, or he’s liable to raise a storm,” _ she warned. 

“Okay, I’ll head home,” Danny replied calmly. He quickly said goodbye and snapped the battered flip phone closed. 

“I’m going with Danny,” Parker said, shoving off the wall and making for the door. 

“Absolutely not,” Archie said, sitting straight up in his chair but making no move to get up. He pulled his cane to rest upright just in front of him and folded his hands on top. “You are staying home tonight.” 

They both knew better than to argue with Archie, or with Danny’s parents for that matter. 

Danny held up his phone and gave Parker a meaningful look, and she nodded slightly. Without a word they hugged and Danny left, shouldering his backpack and rushing down the front steps to his truck. 

The streets were clogged with people driving erratically, but Danny was a good driver, having learned from a young age how to handle a car on difficult terrain, and he made it home safely. 

Just inside the front door Laurel June, his little sister, launched herself at him and he caught her before she could latch her arms around his neck. She had tears streaming down her face and no longer acted nearly eleven, but closer to five as she grasped at thin air. He dropped his bag next to the door and instead attached her arms around his waist. 

“It’s gonna be alright, kid,” he assured her, and then waded to the kitchen, dragging her on shaky legs with him. 

He found Marcie in the kitchen, throwing together a stack of sandwiches, and waited for her to notice him. She did almost right away. 

_ “There _ you are,” she sighed. “Waylon isn’t home yet. Chase and Seth both still have summer reading projects left to do, can you help them?” 

Danny nodded, his jaw tight. What was the point of helping his brothers with their homework if the world was going to end before school started in a week and a half? Still, if he went along with Marcie she’d be less likely to complain to his father. 

He found his brothers playing video games in the living room, Chase wearing nothing but his underpants, and sharing a big bowl of popcorn between them. Seth looked up as he approached but turned back to the television. 

“Let’s go,” he said, finally shaking off Laurel June, who ran off, probably to find their other sister Marie. “Marce wants me to help you with your homework.” 

Fifteen minutes later they closed their bedroom door, Danny having bullied Chase into putting some clothes on and Seth into clearing off the small table in the corner. He got them set up with their projects and pulled out his phone. He opened the window, which luckily faced the backyard, and sat on the windowsill. 

“Where are you goin’?” Chase asked, looking up from his worksheets. 

“I’m not goin’ anywhere, keep your shirt on,” Danny snapped. “Do your homework.” 

He dialled and put the phone to his ear, praying that Parker had snatched the cell phone and hidden it before Archie noticed it was missing. 

The phone picked up but no one spoke. 

“Leporidae,” Danny said into the silence. 

_“Lagomorpha,”_ Parker replied, finishing their code. 

“Any news?” Danny asked. Parker had a tv in her room, Danny did not. 

_“It’s got four arms,”_ Parker said with a little tremor in her voice. _“Four arms and two legs. Its mouth glows orange.”_

“The destruction, Parker,” he reminded her. 

_“It’s in San Francisco. Half the city is already wiped out. They’ve tried everything,”_ she said. _“Tanks, missiles, helos, everything. They even crashed a plane into it. Nothing.”_

Danny let out a breath. “Shit,” he muttered. 

_“Are we going to do it?”_ Parker asked, dropping her voice to a murmur. 

Danny deliberated. He eyed his brothers, both visibly procrastinating, and slipped out the window. He walked farther into the backyard, keeping out of sight of the kitchen windows, and dropped to sit behind a tree. 

“I’ll pick you up at three,” he promised.

 

* * *

 

Once his father and stepmother had gone to bed and the whole house became still and silent, save the tv in his parents’ room playing old sitcoms faintly, Danny waited half an hour, making lists in his head, and got out of bed again. He’d thrown some clothes into his backpack after dinner but stopped after that in case someone came in to see him. Sharing a room with his brothers was inconvenient at the best of times, but tonight it might ruin everything. 

He went to the bathroom and gathered up his toothbrush, a couple bars of soap, and some over-the-counter medicines from the cabinet. He threw together a first-aid kit from the meager supply under the sink, and made a mental note to stock it better once they were safely out of the state. 

He shoved some more clothes into his bag, scrunching everything tight to fit as much as he needed. He laid out a set of clothes, hiding it under his sheets until right before he changed, and padded to the kitchen in his pajamas. 

He fixed four sandwiches as quietly as he could and grabbed a box of cookies and three apples from the pantry, plus two reusable water bottles, which he filled from the tap. He snuck back to his room with his stash and put everything in the top of his backpack and zipped it up. He pulled out his duffel and quickly shoved two blankets, the toiletries, and a flashlight inside. He’d have to raid the garage for the rest of what he’d need. 

He looked at his watch when he finished packing all that. 2:15am. He looked around in the dark for anything else he needed to take, and his eyes alighted on Seth’s change jar. He debated with himself, then deftly unscrewed the cap and plucked the small handful of bills off the top. Teach the kid to start using a wallet. He’d stolen some money from his parents earlier, too, out of the emergency cache Dad didn’t know he knew about next to the gun safe in his parents’ room.

He shoved two of his favorite books in the bag and changed clothes, shoving his pajamas and an extra pair of shoes in the bag as well. Then, carrying his shoes and bags, he crept through the house, leaving his phone and driver’s license on his dresser. 

In the detached garage he gathered a can of gasoline, a roll of duct tape, two utility knives, a length of rope, and a handful of tools he might need if his truck broke down. His work gloves lay on the workbench next to his father’s, and he snatched those up, too. He eyed his little pile of stuff and took a deep breath. 

He darted quickly from the garage to his truck and put everything in the bed as quietly as he could, then crept back to the house. He climbed the fence into the backyard and peered into the bedroom his sisters shared. 

“Bye Marie,” he whispered. “Keep them safe. I’m sorry.” 

The window was closed, and Marie was fast asleep. Laurel June stirred in the other bed and Danny dropped to his knees out of view. He waited for a twenty-count, and then looked again. Laurel June was watching out the window sleepily, and Danny cursed under his breath when her eyes widened. 

He put his finger to his lips and she covered her mouth obediently. He gave her a thumbs-up through the window and blew her a little kiss, then moved to the next window, into his own room he shared with his brothers. 

Seth, on the top bunk of their bunk bed, was tossing and turning, but still asleep, and Chase in the far bed hadn’t moved since Danny left a few minutes prior. 

“Bye, Seth. Bye, Chase. Be good. Don’t let them get to you,” he whispered. 

With that, he darted back to the truck and turned it on, wincing as it roared to life. He left the headlights off until he was around the corner. 

He tried not to think about how he might never see his siblings again. 

He pulled up in front of the house next to Archie’s just before three. He killed the engine and the lights and waited on the porch. 

At three, on the dot, he heard an upstairs window open and he walked around the house until he found it. Almost as soon as the open window came into view a bag was hurled out and he barely caught it. He dropped it by his feet as Parker appeared in the window, and he caught her as she dropped to the ground. It was a damn good thing she was so small. 

“Got everything?” he whispered as she dusted herself off. She nodded and he grabbed the overstuffed duffel. “Even Bunny?” 

She nodded again and gave him a look like he’d just asked if she remembered to breathe. 

“Left the phone, too,” she said. 

“Good. I don’t have my license, so we’re gonna have to fly under the radar,” Danny said as they made their way to the truck. 

“Not a problem,” Parker said. 

As Danny started the truck, Parker made a face towards the house. “Bye, Archie,” she said. “It was not a pleasure to be adopted by you.” Danny smirked. 

On their way out of town they stopped at a gas station and filled up. They bought drinks and a handful of bags of chips and a couple of lighters, and Parker lifted a pair of their favorite candy bars and a map of the United States. 

Once out of town they pulled over at the first rest stop on the highway. Danny pulled out the flashlight and the wads of cash. 

“You take any cash off Archie?” Danny asked. 

“I got his whole wallet,” she said, fishing it out of her pocket. “And some extra cash from the emergency fund.” 

They counted their money. “Two hundred twenty-five,” Danny said, “and three hundred seventy.”

“Five hundred ninety-five,” Parker supplied. 

Danny groaned. “That’s not gonna be enough.” 

Parker’s eyes darted to the convenience store at the rest stop. “They have an ATM,” she said. 

“You know his PIN?” 

Parker scoffed. “Obviously.” 

“Ditch the cards after you use the machine,” Danny instructed as Parker flitted out of the car. 

He watched her carefully as she crossed the parking lot and went inside the store. There was no clear view to the ATM, and it made him nervous, so he went in after her. 

He was glad he did. Almost as soon as he ducked inside the clerk came out from behind the counter. 

“Pretty late for you to be out by yourself,” he said, and Parker jumped. 

“I’m on my way back from a concert,” Parker lied. 

“You don’t look old enough to drive,” the clerk said. “How old are you?” 

“Sixteen,” Parker lied. 

“Yeah?” the clerk asked, moving closer. 

Danny walked up and put his arm around Parker, glaring at the clerk. He was probably ten years younger than the clerk, and half a head shorter, but he had probably forty pounds on him and the clerk was scrawny and looked strung out. 

“You her boyfriend?” the clerk asked, looking a little nervous. 

“Her brother,” Danny replied, cocking his head just slightly, daring the clerk to try something. 

The clerk huffed and moved back behind the counter. 

“Hurry up,” Danny whispered, letting go of Parker. “You can toss the wallet in the parking lot.” 

Parker’s hands shook as she finished the transaction and fished two hundred dollars in twenties from the drawer. Danny glared at the clerk again as they left. 

“You didn’t have to rescue me,” Parker said. “I can take care of myself.”

“I know,” Danny replied as he started the truck. “Just got nervous not bein’ able to see you from here.” 

Parker sighed and stretched. “Where are we going first?” 

Danny pointed to the map and she unfolded it. He pointed to a long interstate that ran from where they were in Oklahoma all the way to California. 

Parker blew out a breath. “We wait until that thing is dead before actually going into San Francisco,” she said. 

“That’s what I had in mind,” Danny said. “One step at a time. Today we get out of Oklahoma. No more than a few hours in the same place.”

 

* * *

 

They ditched the truck in Amarillo. 

They parked outside a big parking garage just after all of the office workers returned from lunch. Danny unloaded the bags one by one, stashing them in a stairwell while Parker found and boosted a car. She came up with an older SUV, one that didn't have a GPS on board, and Danny loaded their stuff back up while Parker checked the glove compartment for documents. 

“Gary Spencer,” Parker called. 

“What?” Danny asked, reorganizing the crap in the trunk. 

“The car’s owner,” Parker said. “Mr. Spencer is not very good at car security. Left a spare key in the wheel well.” 

Danny didn't ask how Parker knew how to boost cars. It was a fair trade for her never asking how he knew how to disarm someone and unload a handgun in two smooth motions. They'd both had rough lives before meeting each other, and it hadn't gotten much better since. 

“He keeps jumper cables and a spare tire in the trunk,” Danny said as he got back in the driver’s seat and Parker clambered over the console to sit in the passenger seat. “Might be tools, too, but I didn’t look real close.” 

Parker hummed. “We should switch out the plates.” 

Danny nodded and pulled out of the parking garage. 

Twenty minutes later, the plates switched with a random car in a supermarket parking lot, they got back on the highway. Parker rolled into the backseat and rummaged around in their stuff, and came up with a handful of snacks. She clambered back up front and handed over an apple and a bag of chips. They were silent for a while. 

“Archie’s probably noticed I’m gone by now,” Parker murmured. Danny looked over. She was gazing out the window with a faraway look on her face. 

Danny hummed in agreement. “My folks, too. Think Archie might be more worried than mine, though,” he said with a little huff of a laugh. 

Parker snorted and looked at him, her normal expression back on her face. “Worried? He’s probably upset he lost his monthly check from the government.” 

“Lost his protege, too,” Danny supplied with a little smile. 

Parker leaned back in her seat with a sigh. “He’ll find another. He always does.” 

Danny raised an eyebrow. 

“I’m not his first,” Parker said. “He has pictures of all of them hidden in his study. Three before me, all in these pictures with their… loot,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “One of them apparently stole nothing but purses. Another had pictures with wallets and diamonds. The third didn’t have anything in particular. She was just in pictures with Archie and a kid. Maybe she stole the kid.” Parker fell silent. “There weren’t any pictures of me.” 

Danny pursed his lips and glanced at her. She was looking out the window again, her jaw tight. 

He considered his words carefully before he spoke. “Did you  _ want _ to be included with them?” he asked softly. 

Parker shrugged minutely and didn’t say anything more, and Danny let it drop. 

It was another half hour, the radio playing staticky tunes through the silence, before Parker spoke again. 

“Where are we going to sleep?” 

“In shifts in the backseat,” Danny replied. “A few hours each, and we’ll move the car in between.” 

“I can drive while you sleep,” Parker offered with a little whine in her voice, like Danny didn’t think she could. 

Danny shrugged. “No sense in driving through the night if the thing is still alive,” he said. 

Parker was quiet, considering this. “You don’t think it’ll come farther inland, do you?” 

Danny thought about the ease with which it had toppled whole skyscrapers. “I think it could if it wanted to. Just a matter of if it’ll get the chance.” 

“It won’t,” Parker said, her confidence just a little bit off. “They’ll get it.” 

“Hope you’re right,” Danny said, almost positive he could see smoke on the horizon.

 

* * *

 

They took a detour to Lubbock for the rest of the day. It was well out of their way, but it was the nearest city to Amarillo and wasn’t on the same route in case the truck was found and their endpoint deduced. 

They arrived mid-afternoon and bought a couple of pre-paid phones at a Walmart, plus first aid supplies to supplement what Danny had taken from his house. 

They camped out in a coffee shop nearby for a few hours to set up their phones and watch the news. The monster in San Francisco was still rampaging, and was almost to the edge of town. There were interviews with top scientists, and the coffee shop, reasonably busy, was dead silent as one scientist said what everyone in the world had been thinking: it was likely an extraterrestrial. 

In the car Parker twisted her hands together and shifted anxiously in her seat. 

“Maybe we shouldn’t go,” she said. 

Danny, his mind racing with the news that an alien had shown up on Earth, just gripped the steering wheel silently, his eyes searching absently for a place to nap for a few hours. Somewhere it wouldn’t be weird to park for four hours in broad daylight and stay inside the car. 

“I mean, if it’s an alien,” Parker said, “then this is an alien invasion. And that means the world is ending, right? Like, actually, really ending. Like in the movies. There’s never just one alien.” 

_ There’s never just one. _ Danny felt a chill at that. He’d considered the prospect of the monster never stopping, just tearing its way through the entire western coast and then making its way in, eventually wiping out every city on Earth, but he somehow hadn’t thought about a second monster showing up, or a third, to decimate the whole world in even less time. 

“And we’re going to ground zero,” Parker said. “To steal stuff.” 

His sleep-deprived brain was making everything hard to process, so he put off thinking too hard about it all until after he could get some sleep. He eventually found a public parking garage and parked in a section with lots of cars around but few people. He crawled into the backseat and closed his eyes. Parker chattered on, but he was able to ignore her for the most part, just white noise to occupy the parts of his mind that wanted to keep thinking. 

He napped, cramped in the backseat of the SUV, until the sky began to darken with the sunset. Parker woke him by tapping his forehead, and he squinted up at her until it all came rushing back. Aliens. Running away from home. No going back. 

So they got on the road again, Danny driving for a few hours and Parker sleeping in the backseat. Around midnight she woke up and they talked for a while, and then Danny pulled off into a secluded corner of a rest stop and they crawled into the backseat together, stretching out on either side with their legs tangled together in the middle, and slept until daybreak. 

“They put out missing persons reports for us,” Parker said the next morning, scrolling through an online newspaper from the Oklahoma City area on her phone. 

Danny looked up from the book he’d been debating lifting. They were killing time in and leeching wifi from a bookstore in Albuquerque. 

“Anna Leach, age 14,” Parker read, “and Daniel Gillespie, age 16. Believed to be together in a 1997 blue Ford pickup.” 

Danny smirked. “Well, they got our ages right, at least.” 

Parker pursed her lips and studied him. “I’m not using Anna anymore, ever,” she said. 

“I figured you wouldn’t,” Danny said, putting the book back and picking up a different one. 

“You probably shouldn’t use Danny either, at least until everything dies down.” 

He looked at her, slowly closing the book. “What would I use instead?” 

Parker shrugged. “Whatever you want,” she said, turning away and wandering down the aisle towards the comic books. 

Danny turned over the book in his hands. He was in the classics section, and the book he held was a collection of T.S. Eliot poetry. 

_ Thomas Stearns _ , he thought, applying it to himself. He shook his head and put the book back. He eyed the other writers on the same shelf.  _ Christian Andersen. Victor Hugo. John Keats. _ He rejected all of them, no matter how much he liked their works. His eye kept going back to the first book, though, the T.S. Eliot one, and he picked it up again. 

_ Eliot. Eliot. I like it. But Eliot what? _

He scanned the table of contents for something.  _ Eliot Prufrock? No. Too froofy.  _ He closed the book and headed after Parker, tucking the slim volume into his pocket as he went. 

As they walked to the car again a couple hours later, all caught up on the news--San Francisco and neighboring towns had been more or less evacuated, nothing had been successful in taking down the monster, the President had long since issued a state of emergency--and with a number of new books stashed secretly in their pockets and bags, Danny caught sight of the tan SUV and  _ Spencer _ popped into his mind. The car’s owner. 

_ Eliot Spencer. _

It was perfect. It fit him better than Danny Gillespie had in years, and fit who he was becoming during this trip. Grown-up. Tough, but with a sensitive side. Take-no-shit. A professional. 

He turned it over in his mind a few more times as he put the truck in gear, and as he pulled out of the parking lot he took a deep breath. 

“Eliot Spencer,” he said. “That’s my new name.” 

Parker looked up from her new comic and grinned. She stuck out a hand towards him. 

“Nice to meet you, Eliot Spencer.” 

They shook hands, and as he let go he felt Eliot Spencer lodge itself firmly in his identity. 

_ No more Danny Gillespie. _

 

* * *

 

The monster finally fell six days after surfacing. 

Parker and Eliot were loitering in Reno, Nevada when they heard the news, having zigzagged across the southwest over the past several days, waiting nervously for the death of the monster before entering California. They were picking at their sandwiches in a little diner, both seriously considering broaching the topic of turning around and heading home, when a waitress harshly shushed everyone in the diner and pointed to the little TV in the corner. 

The monster--everyone was calling it Axe-head now--had trampled all over San Francisco, Oakland, and all the smaller towns in the area, and had suddenly turned with new determination towards Sacramento. The military, having tried everything but its biggest weapons, finally got out the big guns in an effort to save the city of two million people. Three nuclear missiles later, Axe-head fell to its knees and then to the ground and didn’t move. 

That was four hours ago. The military had issued a stern gag order, probably, to the press not to release the footage until they were sure the thing was dead. 

The diner, mostly empty because a fair portion of the city had evacuated, erupted in cheers. Strangers hugged, tears streaming down their cheeks. 

Eliot and Parker just stared at each other. The very real possibility of the beast not letting up had begun to seem like a glowing exit sign, a reason to give up and go home rather than do the scariest thing they’d ever done in their lives. 

Well. No turning back now. 

In the chaos they slipped out of the diner without paying. Their remaining money was so much more important now. 

They found a laundromat and broke into a motel room for the night, suddenly unsure when next they'd be able to wash their clothes and shower. Parker lifted a couple of wallets from the laundromat and emptied a few checking accounts. 

They barely talked all night, not feeling the need. They knew each other well enough to  _ feel _ each other's nerves and apprehension. Instead they lay awake under the covers of their pilfered motel room beds, silently trying to drum up enough courage to either put their foot down and say no, we can’t do this, we have to go home, or to turn their backs on their childhoods for good and start their new lives in earnest in the wreckage. 

Neither was sure which they were going to do until they were packed up the next morning. 

Eliot sat in the driver’s seat, keys in the ignition but the car off, his hands on the steering wheel. The sun was just beginning to rise and the city was starting to stir. Parker sat in the passenger seat, her knees pulled up to her chest and chin resting on her knees. 

Eliot let out a breath and turned on the SUV. 

“Where are we going?” he asked quietly. 

Parker was silent for a long minute. “We stick to the original plan.” She looked at Eliot then, fear in her eyes, as if hoping he’d refuse. 

He felt peace wash over him, their decision made. 

“To San Francisco,” Eliot said, and put the car in reverse. 

Parker blew out a breath and nodded. “To San Francisco.” 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings in this chapter for: violence; mentions of guns and knives; death; short discussion of child death; brief descriptions of abuse by parental figures
> 
> some liberties taken with the geography of San Francisco and Oakland, but most is accurate (except the tunnels I doubt there are really convenient tunnels everywhere)  
> liberties also taken with what will actually knock someone unconscious for minutes at a time

They hit a roadblock three miles outside Oakland. It was right in the middle of a suburban neighborhood, a line of military personnel from all branches of the military, even some foreign, each soldier twenty yards apart from the next. They held huge machine guns and stood so stiffly they looked like mannequins.

Figuring it was best if the soldiers didn’t see them to begin with, they ditched the SUV in an alley between two crumbling buildings as soon as they could see the roadblock on the horizon. They’d seen no civilians on the street since they passed through Sacramento that morning, and  _that_ city had been almost vacant. 

In Flagstaff they’d stolen better backpacks, sturdy, solid black things with lots of pockets and places on the outsides to clip stuff, and they quickly repacked. In Reno Parker had also, somehow, stolen a little messenger bag which was hardly more than a fanny pack, a handful of portable phone charger packs, fire starters, a couple of multitools, two gas masks, and water purification tablets while Eliot gathered provisions for a few days. Even with their three new bags completely stuffed they still had a lot of stuff they needed to take, so Eliot grudgingly repacked one of the duffels and slung the strap over his shoulder before shouldering his backpack. They left their old bags, some things they weren’t taking with them, and a bunch of trash in the back of the SUV.

They crept around the building they’d parked behind until they found a way in. The doorway was crumbling in on itself and the ceiling sagged in places. It looked like it had been a restaurant before everything, and some rubble in the corner smoldered faintly. Parker led the way, climbing over and ducking under obstacles until in the back hallway she found a half-open door with a staircase leading underground behind it. She grinned back at Eliot and went through.

The basement was small, but undamaged, and there was a thick, heavy door at the far end. Parker picked the lock and together they shouldered it open, revealing a long, pitch black tunnel.

Eliot swallowed nervously and looked at Parker, who was staring into the darkness apprehensively.

“Shall we?” Eliot croaked. Parker started, like she forgot he was there, and nodded faintly.

Flashlights aloft, they walked side-by-side into the tunnel.

It was like no one had been down there in decades. There were lights set into the walls, but any power that had once run to them had either run out or been cut off by the monster. The tunnel was cold despite the August heat outside, and Eliot felt a shiver run through Parker.

They walked in relative silence for hours, taking a couple of turns to keep them going towards the roadblock and, they hoped, past it. Parker quickly got used to the cramped, dark tunnel, and her shoulders loosened and she walked with confidence. Eliot, on the other hand, hated small spaces and remained on high alert the whole time.

That turned out to be a good thing, because there were two guards waiting at a junction a few hours in, and they raised a commotion when they spotted Eliot and Parker’s flashlight beams.

Eliot swiftly flicked off his light and darted forward, taking advantage of the guards’ nightblindness to sneak up and put an elbow into one of their necks. He retaliated clumsily, swiping for Eliot in the dark, but Eliot caught his flailing arm and flipped him over his shoulder. Ten years of judo paying off. The guard landed heavily on his back on the concrete with a thick groan and stayed down, and Eliot moved on to the other, only to see that Parker was taking care of him.

She had dropped her flashlight and it rolled meekly on the floor, illuminating every half second or so Parker perched on the other guard’s back with him in a headlock. Eliot locked eyes with Parker and she nodded. She shoved off the guard’s back, pushing him forward into Eliot, who caught him with an elbow to the face. He went down hard, toppling over almost onto his buddy, and writhed on the ground with a thin mewl. Eliot kicked him hard in the ribs and then the head, and he stilled. A kick to the first guard ensured he wouldn’t get up, either.

Breathing hard and a little sick to his stomach, Eliot kneeled and felt for pulses in both of them. They were alive, but unconscious.

“Must be getting close to an exit,” Parker whispered, dropping to her knees beside Eliot and the guards.

Eliot hummed in agreement. “Search him,” he said, pointing to the guard nearest her. “See who he is and check if he has anything useful.”

A moment later Parker came up with a military ID card. “Private First Class Bryan March,” she read. “US Marine Corps.”

Eliot found the other guard’s ID and read it aloud. “PFC Matthew Nadir. US Marine Corps.”

They rummaged through the Marines’ pockets and came up with a couple of road flares and a combat first aid kit each, among other things they didn’t think they’d need. Both guards carried gas masks strapped to their waists, and Parker poked at one.

“Probably lots of smoke in the city,” she said.

Eliot nodded. “I could see it when we were driving in. Have your mask handy if you need it?”

Parker pointed to where she had strapped her mask to her backpack near her hip.

“Okay, good. Let’s take a breather here,” Eliot said, “eat a snack, get rested up, and then find the exit. Probably be running for a while once we get up top.”

They dragged the Marines off to the side and sat on the cold concrete ground for half an hour, and then one of the Marines’ radios crackled to life.

 _“Status report, March,”_ a voice on the other end demanded.

Parker looked at Eliot, her eyes wide with panic. They quickly gathered up their things and looked around for an exit. About twenty yards farther down the tunnel they found a ladder up just as the radio repeated the demand. Eliot, one hand on the ladder, looked back to make sure Parker was behind him and saw her plucking the radio from the Marine.

“Parker!” he hissed. “Come on!”

She flitted back and they headed up the ladder, Parker first. At the top there was a heavy hatch, and she shoved it open as quietly as she could manage. It was dark on the other side, probably inside a building, and quiet.

Parker poked her head out and looked around cautiously, then crept up as quietly as she could. Eliot followed her lead and emerged inside another crumbling building. It was silent. A window on one wall had partially collapsed, taking the blinds with it, and through the intact part of the window frame they could see what looked like the mangled remains of shipping containers.

They quickly, but carefully, searched the building and what they could see of the outside for any military personnel before they left the building. The radio Parker had filched occasionally made staticky sounds, followed by increasingly urgent orders to report. Parker turned the volume way down so the noise wouldn't give away their position, but kept it on as a sort of early warning system.

The building they'd emerged from was in between the rest of the city—Oakland, they assumed—and a port of some kind. Thousands of shipping containers, most mangled, some smoking still, were scattered in what were once probably neat rows for hundreds of yards. Beyond that was water, and in the distance a crumbling, smoking city.

“We did it,” Parker said quietly.

Eliot frowned. “Not in the city yet,” he replied. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Those ain't gonna be the only military guys in our way.”

“We should've taken their guns,” Parker said after a pause.

“No guns, alright? Rule number one,” Eliot said. “I'm not doin’ anything with guns I don't have to.”

Parker pursed her lips and held her hands up in surrender.

The radio she’d stuffed into a pocket of her messenger bag crackled.

 _“March, report,”_ the voice on the other end commanded.

There was a long pause and some kind of vague mumbling in the background.

 _“Sending reinforcements to you. You better have good reason for not responding,”_ the voice warned, and Parker looked alarmed at Eliot.

“Shit,” Eliot growled. “We gotta go.”

They dashed across the wide lane separating the building from the shipping containers and wove between them. After a few minutes they looked back and saw a jeep drive up to the building and four people get out, their huge guns held at the ready.

Parker and Eliot kept going, darting between shipping containers until the water was only thirty yards away.

“Stay here,” Parker commanded, peeking around the corner of the container they’d stopped behind back towards the building, and then the other way, towards the water.

“Where are you going?” Eliot asked.

“Gonna go see what we’re working with,” Parker said with a breathless grin, and before Eliot could stop her or say anything she had darted to the cover of the next farthest shipping container, and then the next.

Eliot groaned to himself and leaned back onto the twisted metal of the container. He pulled a water bottle out and took a long drink while he waited for Parker to return.

She came back as quietly as she’d left five minutes later.

“On the other side of this bay is a city. I think it's San Francisco,” she said with a little excitement. “Off that way—” she pointed, though there were containers in the way and Eliot couldn't see what she was pointing to, “—is a bridge and it crosses the bay.”

“See anyone crossing it?”

“Lots,” Parker said, her face falling. “Trucks and jeeps mostly. But!” she said, holding up a finger, “it’s not solid all the way down to the water. We could cross on the underside.”

Eliot grinned and clapped a hand down on Parker’s shoulder. “Alright!”

 _“All military personnel patrolling Oakland port area—I repeat, all military personnel patrolling Oakland port area,”_ the radio shouted, _“possible intruders exiting from underground tunnels. Unknown number and appearance, but they should be considered armed and dangerous.”_

Parker raised her eyebrows. “Well! Armed and dangerous,” she said proudly. “And we didn't even have any weapons.”

Eliot pulled two knives out of his pocket and raised his eyebrows right back.

Parker scowled. “You know what I mean.”

Eliot put the knives back and peeked out towards the building again. “We gotta go. They're gonna be looking for us here, and I bet they've got helicopters.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” Parker asked, tugging on Eliot’s sleeve.

They ran in a crouch, Parker leading the way, along the side of several containers. They cut right and skated along the perimeter of the port a row of containers back so anyone looking from the bridge wouldn’t see them. There was a narrow inlet between their position and the base of the bridge, so they had to run all the way around before they could actually get on the bridge.

“Wish we could just swim across,” Parker whispered, out of breath, as they ran.

“Can’t,” Eliot replied. “They’d see us.”

Parker made a frustrated noise in her throat and kept going.

It was nearly nightfall by the time they made it to the base of the bridge, they had to be so stealthy. Helicopters flew overhead a few times and they ducked into containers to rest and wait them out. And even with containers and other debris strewn about they had to cross big open stretches, holding their breath and darting at full speed from cover to cover.

Finally, finally, they made it to the bridge approach. They made their way carefully along the side of the road in half-crouches until they came to the crumbled husks of a few shipping containers. One, towards the middle, was almost intact, with only the open end dented, making the doorway much smaller than it had once been.

Parker groaned. “Can we take a break?” she whined.

Eliot looked at her. She looked dead on her feet and he didn’t feel much better. He gestured to the shipping container.

“Let’s nap here,” he said.

They set up a little camp inside the container, carefully shoving aside splintered wooden pallets and twisted metal until there was a space on the floor big enough for the two of them to sit side by side propped against the wall. They pulled a scrap of canvas free from the debris and laid it out on the floor and then slumped down against the wall and each other.

Parker sat still for a few minutes, breathing heavily, and Eliot rested, but kept his eyes open and listened hard. There was the faint roar of car engines on the bridge interspersed with the occasional louder thrum of truck engines. The traffic remained consistent, nothing to suggest a jeep was pulling up outside their shelter, and the radio they’d stolen kept up a steady stream of status reports indicating no one was near them and they hadn’t been spotted.

After several minutes Parker sat up and dug through one of the bags and came up with a water bottle, a protein bar, and a little bottle of ibuprofen. Eliot watched as she took the maximum dose and then held out his hand. His feet and lower legs were killing him, and his shoulders ached from his bags. Parker shook the same dose into his palm and passed him the water bottle, then dug in her bag for another protein bar.

Parker got less than halfway through her protein bar before she fell asleep slumped heavily onto Eliot’s shoulder. He ate and watched the sky darken through the little hole that the big doors had been squashed into and listened. He tossed his empty wrapper aside and made himself a little more comfortable, settling in to listen and keep watch while Parker slept.

It was pure accident, then, when he fell asleep.

 

* * *

 

Eliot awoke to the faint sound of traffic. It was pitch black outside, and he blinked furiously to try to regain some sense of his surroundings. He felt a weight on his shoulder and shrugged automatically to get it off. Parker groaned and sat up, grumbling sleepily.

“What was that for?” she asked accusatorily.

“Sorry,” Eliot grunted.

Parker stretched, nearly smacking him in the face, and he leaned away slightly and pushed the button that illuminated the numbers on his watch. Just after midnight.

“We should keep moving,” Parker said.

“You feeling better?” Eliot asked.

She hummed an affirmative. “I’m hungry, though.”

Eliot stood and went to the little door with some difficulty, unable to see obstacles on the floor. He peeked his head out. There were only a few cars and trucks crossing the bridge, and he stepped outside the container to do a quick perimeter check.

All clear.

He waded back inside, pulling a flashlight out of his pocket and shuttering the beam with his fingers. Parker blinked in the light and looked around, then picked up the rest of her protein bar sitting on her lap with an impressed hum.

“Eat that quick and let’s get goin’,” Eliot said, stooping to gather up his things. His calves burned with the stretch and he let out a breath through his teeth. “We’re clear, but I dunno for how much longer.”

Parker shoved the whole protein bar in her mouth and chewed, and Eliot made a face. Parker grinned with a full mouth and set about gathering her own things. In another minute they were ready to go, and Eliot shouldered his packs again, groaning quietly under their weight. He pulled his work gloves out of his duffel and pulled them on, and saw Parker do the same with her new gloves. Eliot flicked off his flashlight and they stood in the dark for half a minute, letting their eyes adjust.

“Okay,” Parker murmured. “Let’s do this.”

Eliot had gotten a good look at the undercarriage of the bridge as they approached it earlier. The struts were far enough apart that most people wouldn’t be able to go from beam to beam, but they were not most people.

Parker went first, climbing up into the structure of the bridge as it lifted from the ground, and began steadily inching towards the water. There was enough ambient light reflecting off the water below from the work lamps temporarily installed on the length of the bridge that there were decent silhouettes of the beams below their feet.

They moved slowly and quietly, their breathing echoing, loud to their ears, off the metal all around them. In time they stopped to rest for a few minutes, straddling the beams, and then kept going.

By four they made it to the midpoint of the bridge. Eliot tried not to look down any farther than the beams below his feet, tried to forget that they were sixty feet above water that was probably at least that deep.

They moved slower on the second half of the bridge, feeling acutely how little sleep they’d gotten, and took more breaks. By sunrise they had made it barely two-thirds of the way across, and by the time they set foot down on solid land again it was bright out and the traffic roaring overhead had doubled in volume.

The very base of the bridge where it met the ground was within a stone’s throw of a Coast Guard training center, and Eliot cursed under his breath when he saw it and pointed it out to Parker.

They stumbled, too tired to really be stealthy, farther away until they found a clump of tall trees with enough handholds to be climbed without too much trouble. Eliot gave Parker a boost up to the first handhold, and when she was steady she reached down to grab his hand and haul him up with her. They climbed, groaning, until they were well out of sight of the ground and found branches sturdy enough to hold them.

Without a word they unshouldered their packs, secured them to a nearby branch, and fell asleep both leaning back against the trunk.

Eliot was shaken awake some time later, and opened his eyes to see Parker’s face inches from his. He recoiled automatically and almost lost his balance on the branch. Parker reached out to steady him and put a finger to her lips.

“There's been people walking through here,” she whispered.

“How long?” Eliot asked, glancing at his watch. A little past one in the afternoon.

“Since I woke up half an hour ago,” Parker replied. “I've seen four, but a couple have walked past more than once.”

“Military?” Eliot asked, and Parker nodded.

They stayed quiet for a while, resting and keeping watch. Parker dug two apples out of one of their bags and they snacked, careful not to drop any seeds or their apple cores to the ground. Growing bored, Parker pulled out a book and started reading, and Eliot kept watch for a couple hours.

Gradually the soldiers patrolled under their tree with less and less frequency, and by four only one of them had walked past in an hour. They waited half an hour more, perched and ready, until a soldier passed by underneath, and five minutes later they shimmied down the tree and took off, darting from cover to cover.

The bridge they'd crossed the bay on led underground here, and they picked their way over the hill it tunnelled through. As the road emerged from underground on the other side, Eliot cursed.

They were on an island. There was another stretch of bridge to cross.

Parker, seeing the road rise up off the ground again, stomped to a clump of trees and sat down heavily behind one, pouting. Eliot followed.

“There's got to be an easier way,” Eliot groaned. “I mean, we _could_ cross under again, but—”

“Let's go steal a car,” Parker said, looking up suddenly with the expression she wore when she was planning a cunning bit of thievery.

Eliot grinned. “I'm in.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Okay, maybe stealing a car was a bad idea,” Parker squeaked.

Eliot’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. They had crossed the bridge without incident until right before it landed on solid ground again, where the military had set up a roadblock, with people checking IDs and dogs checking trunks. They hadn’t been able to see it from the other side of the bridge when Parker boosted the car.

Eliot briefly considered stepping on the gas when the one of the men in camo fatigues motioned for him to stop, considered plowing through the line of soldiers and keep going until they ran out of gas or stopped being chased, but he saw the twenty or so guns held by the people milling around in a line and his mind supplied him the likelihood of getting more than a hundred feet beyond the roadblock with four intact tires and two intact windshields. The chances weren’t good. So he slowed to a stop, gritting his teeth.

“We’re just trying to find our parents,” Parker whispered.

“What?” Eliot asked, glancing over nervously.

“That’s our cover. We’re trying to find our parents,” Parker repeated, and then she plastered on a plaintive look and obligingly rolled down her window when a soldier tapped on it.

Eliot followed suit and a man in mirrored sunglasses with a nametag on his fatigues that said “Ford” leaned down to peer inside. The back doors of their stolen car opened and Eliot kicked himself.

“Only military personnel and authorized civilians are allowed in the city, kids,” Ford said.

“Please,” Parker said, and the man pulled off his sunglasses and squinted past Eliot at her. “We’re just trying to find our parents,” she pleaded.

She wasn’t a good liar, and Eliot heard how unconvincing she was, but maybe the soldiers didn’t. They didn’t know her like Eliot did, after all.

“That true?” the man asked Eliot, who nodded.

“They were here for a second honeymoon,” Eliot explained, hoping he was a better liar. “We saw on the news… We’re just trying to find them, sir.” He put on a scared expression.

“Sir,” one of the soldiers checking the trunk and backseat called, and Ford turned away. “Provisions and gas masks,” the soldier said.

“Marine standard issue radio, sir,” another called from the other side of the car.

Ford turned back and leaned down, his eyes narrowed. “Why don’t you two step out of the car?”

Eliot swallowed hard and shot a glance towards Parker, who looked panicked. He nodded at Ford and slowly opened the car door. Parker followed suit. Eliot thought as hard as he could at Parker, warning her not to flee and leave him there. She could do it; she was slippery and fast and he was considerably less stealthy and doubted very much he could fight his way out of this one.

“What’s your name?” Ford asked Eliot as he stood and another soldier started patting him down.

Eliot stayed quiet, letting his scared expression drop from his face and putting on a carefully neutral one in its place. A glance towards Parker saw her with a similar expression as she held her arms out to her sides and a soldier stooped to feel around her ankles.

Ford stepped closer. “I asked your name,” he said, his voice quieter but no less authoritative.

“Don’t have one,” Eliot grunted.

Ford sighed. “Alright, then.”

The soldier searching Eliot found a knife strapped to his ankle and another in his right pants pocket and held them up for Ford to see. Ford raised an eyebrow at Eliot and took one of the knives, testing it in his hand, and Eliot tensed automatically.

“Something tells me you’re not really here to find your parents,” Ford said. He looked at the soldier standing behind Eliot and jerked his head. “Let’s go.”

The soldier nudged Eliot towards Ford as the latter turned to go, and Eliot shot a glare at him.

“Bring her,” Ford called towards the other side of the car, and a moment later Parker was guided up next to Eliot. “Get their things.”

They were unceremoniously ushered into the wide backseat of a large SUV, though it didn’t remain roomy for long, because a soldier shoved in on either side of them. Ford climbed into the passenger seat, and another soldier got behind the wheel.

As they took off, Ford turned around and peered at Parker. Eliot shifted in his seat, protective of his best friend and not at all trusting this man.

“What’s your name?” Ford asked Parker.

Eliot growled. “She don’t have a name either.”

Ford studied him for a second. “You’re the ringleader, I see,” he said, nodding like he understood. Eliot glowered at him.

“Is not,” Parker piped up, sounding offended, and Eliot elbowed her in the ribs and shot her a warning glance.

“Oh?” Ford asked. “So _you’re_ the leader?” he asked, raising his eyebrows at Parker.

Parker narrowed her eyes at him and went silent.

Ford studied them for a long minute, and then turned around to face front in his seat.

“Thompson, how’s your family?” Ford asked. “They make it out okay?”

The soldier to Eliot’s left gave an affirmative and Ford made small talk with him and the others until they slowed to a stop outside one of the few completely intact buildings they’d seen. Eliot resisted the urge to smirk. They’d been driven into the city.

They were muscled out of the car, though the soldiers seemed reluctant to shove them around too much. Probably because of their age and how frail Parker looked. Eliot grabbed her hand and acted more protective of her than he really was. If he could get them to underestimate her, it would make everything easier.

“Don't say _anything,”_ Eliot hissed as quietly as he could manage, and Parker nodded once, settling her face into a neutral mask, the one she wore anytime she was away from her safe spaces in her room, at the dojo, and at times at Eliot’s house.

They were led inside the building, which looked like it had been an office building and co-opted for military use. There weren’t many people around, and what few people were in the building were rushing around. There was a faint hum that was out of place, and Eliot guessed the lights and computers were running off a couple big generators. They were deposited in a conference room with a guard inside the door and one outside, and made to wait.

Eliot and Parker sat in spinny chairs, staring at each other and each separately plotting how to get out of there. Eliot watched Parker’s eyes unfocus, dart about in thought, and refocus several times.

They waited for nearly half an hour before Ford returned.

“We searched your bags,” Ford said as he pulled out a chair across the table and sat. He studied them and Eliot made his face as neutral as he could. After a long pause Ford furrowed his brow, looking a little frustrated, and sighed. “We found your phones. No contacts except each other’s phones.” He waited again for them to respond. “I was surprised to find books in your bags. Don't see many runaways still caring about their educations.”

When nothing he said elicited a response, Ford leaned forward and rested his hands on the tabletop.

“I know you're runaways and I know you're here to loot from the wreckage. As we speak my men are running your fingerprints and searching through missing persons reports. You're going to stay in this room until we know who you are.” He leaned back in his chair and folded his hands across his stomach casually. “If we like what we see, we’ll deliver you to the authorities well outside this city and you’ll go back home. If we don't….”

He shrugged casually and Eliot felt Parker tense next to him. Eliot continued staring straight at Ford without changing his expression.

There was a long silence as Ford gazed lazily back and forth between them, waiting for one of them to speak. Eliot leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. Ford watched him and the corner of his mouth twitched upwards. He almost looked… impressed.

Ford pursed his lips, amusement in his eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, but a sharp rap on the door interrupted him, and the door opened before any of them had a chance to react.

“Sir.” It was a young man, nervous-looking and just barely older than Eliot.

“What?” Ford asked, irritated at being interrupted.

“Sorry, Admiral. It’s just… your wife is on the phone,” the young soldier said, shifting on his feet in the doorway.

“Take a message, I’m busy,” Ford said, turning back to Eliot and Parker.

“She said it was urgent, sir. It’s about your son,” the young man stuttered, looking profoundly uncomfortable.

Ford froze, a look of panic crossing his face for a fleeting moment before he wrestled his expression under control. He stood and left the room without a backwards glance. Through the glass door they could see that a guard stayed posted outside the door, though the guard that had been in there earlier with them didn’t return.

Parker let out a breath.

“We gotta get out of here, Park,” Eliot whispered.

“I counted twelve people in the building on our way in,” Parker replied, reaching up to twirl a strand of hair through her fingers as she thought. “They took our stuff off to the right halfway down the hall.”

“Got a plan?” Eliot asked.

Parker paused, pursing her lips. “Yeah.” She pointed surreptitiously to the far corner of the room. Just barely peeking out behind a large freestanding task board was an air vent near the ceiling. “We can’t get to it without the guard seeing, though.”

Eliot looked towards the door. The guard stood sideways to the door, looking down the hallway, and the conference room was on a blind hall, out of sight of the rest of the office. If they took him down they would conceivably have a few minutes before anyone noticed them missing.

Eliot nodded. “How sick can you look?” he asked, and Parker unfocused her eyes and slumped limply back in her seat. As Eliot watched she paled and a slight sweat broke out on her forehead. He blinked. “Holy shit,” he mumbled.

Parker smiled and winked, then waved her hand at him and settled her face back into pallor. Eliot shook his head, a little disgusted.

“Leporidae,” Parker whispered.

Eliot stood and readied his face. “Lagomorpha,” he finished quietly, and then headed for the door. “Please,” he said through the glass, feigning panic.

The soldier on the other side glanced at him and shook his head, putting a hand against the glass to hold it closed.

“There’s something wrong with her, _please,”_ Eliot said, gesturing to Parker.

The guard looked at Parker and his eyes widened. He hurriedly opened the door. Eliot stepped aside to let him in until he closed the door, then stepped up behind him and wrapped an arm around his neck in a choke hold. Parker sprang up and darted to the task board, wheeling it aside and pulling up a chair under the vent.

Eliot fumbled for the taser he’d seen at the guard’s waist and pressed it into his back. He squeezed the trigger, wondering a moment too late if he’d get shocked, too. The guard tensed and let out a high-pitched squeal, muffled a little by Eliot’s arm around his throat, and when the charge ended he slumped to the ground out of Eliot’s grasp. Eliot didn’t feel a thing.

He tased the man once more to knock him unconscious, then took his radio. He tucked the taser in his waistband and radio into his pocket and headed after Parker, who stood on the chair but needed a little more of a boost to get her up into the vent she’d jimmied open. Once she was up he scrambled up as well with her help and they set off as quietly as they could.

Parker led the way, taking turns that led them, Eliot hoped, to the room where their bags were being held. The ducts were well overdue for a cleaning, and they crawled through a thin layer of dust. Parker was nearly silent as she slithered through, but Eliot accidentally kicked the inside of the duct a few times and Parker shushed him. Each time they came to a ceiling vent they paused, looking down through the grate and listening.

When they were halfway through the building, by Parker’s estimate, they paused at a grate above an office. There was a hunched figure sitting at the desk, a phone receiver clutched tight in his hand. Eliot budged up next to Parker in the wide vent and they watched as the figure shook.

He wasn’t listening on the phone, just squeezing it on the desk top until his knuckles turned white. He ran a shaking hand through his hair, clutching tight at the crown of his head, and a strangled sob wrenched through him. Parker and Eliot exchanged a look of panic.

“God,” the man whispered, and with a start Eliot realized it was Ford.

He suddenly slammed the phone receiver against the desk hard. He shook, crumpling in on himself, and then slammed the phone again and again. His fingers slowly uncurled from around the phone and that hand joined the other in his hair and he tugged hard at his hair with both hands, sobbing quietly. Eliot recognized that Ford was trying to keep his volume down so no one would come in and interrupt him.

Eliot felt bad for intruding on this personal moment, no matter how annoying this guy was, so he nudged Parker and gestured farther down the vent, and Parker nodded and resumed her crawling. He took one last long look at Ford, trembling at the desk with his hands in his short hair, and crawled on, taking extra care to be quiet as he passed overhead.

At the next junction Parker paused, and Eliot could practically hear her mapping the building in her head before she took a left. At the next grate she paused, then looked back at Eliot with a little grin. He crawled up next to her and looked down through the vent grating and saw a table with two backpacks, a duffel, and a messenger bag open on it and familiar books, tools, and clothes strewn about.

They waited, listening hard, for any sign of movement below, and Parker crawled to the other side of the grate and turned around so she could get a different angle of the room. When they were positive they could drop down without being seen, Eliot quietly opened the grate and lowered himself down. It was a couple-foot drop to the table from how far he could reach dangling from the ceiling, but he landed without making too much noise and reached up to help Parker down once he made sure the room was clear.

They swiftly packed up their things, Eliot shoving the new radio in his bag but keeping the taser in his pocket, and then Parker froze, a look of panic on her face.

“What?” Eliot hissed.

“I didn’t think about how to get out of the building once we were here,” she said, her eyes wide.

Eliot let out a heavy breath. “Shit,” he whispered.

He looked around. They looked to be in a copy room that had had a folding table dragged into it. There were no windows, and the only exit was out through the middle of the office. Eliot went to the door and cautiously looked out. He saw no one, and at the end of the row of cubicles he saw an exit sign with an arrow pointing left.

“Out this door, left to the end of the row, then another left. Can’t see any farther than that,” Eliot whispered to Parker, who was fastening her bags on securely. Parker nodded and Eliot adjusted his bags, too.

“Leporidae,” Eliot whispered.

“Lagomorpha,” Parker finished.

They nodded at each other and then Parker slipped out of the room just as they heard a commotion at the other end of the building, back where they had been held in the conference room.

Eliot cursed under his breath and went after Parker. He reflexively grabbed her hand as he passed her and they sprinted as quietly as they could across the office towards the exit sign. The exit in question, they saw when they turned the corner, was at the end of a utility hallway with a couple restrooms off either side and some broom closets, and the door to the outside was glass. There didn’t appear to be anyone on the other side, and they sprinted towards the door.

The fire alarm went off when they shoved open the door, and Eliot cursed as a lone soldier came into view. He shot a quick look at Parker and together they raised their twined hands and clotheslined the soldier across the throat just as he started to raise his hands and they passed him. The soldier fell, choking, and they kept going, letting go of each other to dash towards the cover of the next building over.

They ran several blocks, darting from cover to cover in the ruins of the street, lungs burning from the exertion and dust, and then cut right to throw their pursuers off their trail. It was nearly half an hour before they stopped to rest, chests heaving and coughing. Eliot pulled his water bottle out of his bag and groaned. He was out of water.

He held the empty bottle up at Parker, who frowned at it wordlessly, bent over almost in half trying to catch her breath. She fumbled for her own water and shook it. There was a faint sloshing sound. It was almost empty. Parker took a drink and passed it to Eliot, who drained the last couple sips.

“We have to stop soon,” Parker panted, leaning tiredly back against the crumbling wall they hid behind. “I can't go much further.”

Eliot nodded and stuck his head out to check behind them. They were clear.

“Let’s, uh….” He floundered, fatigue and thirst clouding his mind. “Cut that way,” he finally said, pointing. “Go a couple more blocks, and then stop for a while.”

Parker nodded, looking as tired as Eliot felt.

“Keep a lookout for anywhere with intact rooms,” Eliot said. “See if we can find food and water.”

They set off again, moving slowly since the adrenaline from their escape wore off.

It was just getting dark when they found somewhere to camp out. It was a partially collapsed house, tall and narrow, and in the mostly-intact kitchen near the back of the house they found half a dozen water bottles in the refrigerator next to rank spoiled food. They each downed a bottle of water and shoved the rest in their bags, and then they raided the cabinets for shelf-stable food, coming up with some granola bars and cereal.

They climbed up the still-intact-but-creaky stairs and found a couple of bedrooms, but elected to sleep in the same one in case they needed to skedaddle quickly. In the master bedroom they stretched out, fully clothed, on the bed and passed out in a matter of minutes.

They slept, uninterrupted, until morning.

“What do you think happened to Ford?” Parker asked quietly a few minutes after she woke up.

Eliot, who had woken half an hour before Parker but elected to keep resting rather than get up, sighed. “Nothin’ good.”

Parker rolled over and hitched up on her elbow. “He was crying. In the office.”

“Think somethin’ happened to his son,” Eliot murmured.

Parker hummed mildly. “That’s sad.”

They were quiet for a while. Eliot listened for movement outside the open--broken--windows and heard… nothing. It was eerily silent for a city that had, just a week prior, held five million people. _Living_ people, that is, and that thought chilled Eliot to the bone. So many people had died.

He wondered distantly if the owners of this house had made it.

“I’m hungry,” Parker whined.

Eliot pushed his morbid thoughts out of mind and swung his legs down off the bed.

“We shouldn’t stay here much longer,” he said.

“Breakfast first,” Parker said. “It’s the most important meal of the day.”

“Breakfast first,” Eliot agreed.

After downing a couple of granola bars each they raided the house for supplies, coming up with some food and toiletries and, in the small detached garage, another half dozen water bottles.

Their packs several pounds heavier, they set off, wandering the streets.

An hour or so later they suddenly came out of a neighborhood and stood atop a hill overlooking the city. Parker dropped the long stick she’d picked up somewhere and had been poking things with as they walked, and her mouth dropped open.

Eliot grinned at her. “Hey. We made it,” he said.

Parker’s face slowly lit up and she smiled. She shrugged off her bags and took a couple of running steps, turned back to face Eliot, and laughed.

“We made it!” she cried.

Eliot laughed.

“Eliot!” Parker cried, running up and grabbing at him, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “We made it!”

He let her drag him a few steps, his excitement building, before he shrugged off his bags too and ran around with her, laughing as she did excited cartwheels. He stopped, clenched his fists, raised his face to the sky, and let out a wordless yell of triumph.

“Yeah!” Parker yelled as he shouted. She threw a punch at the sky. “We did it!”

They never had to go back. _They never had to go back._

They would never have to suffer through their parents’ abuse and endangerment and manipulation ever again. Parker would never again hear Archie berate her for not understanding a social cue or put her down for failing to crack a combination lock in less than five minutes. Eliot would never again have to sit through Marcie’s threats or wait, not fighting back, as his father kicked the wind out of him.

“We never have to go back,” Eliot said out loud, quietly, reverently. Parker, mid-bounce, stopped, her eyes widening.

“Ever?” she asked warily.

“Not unless you want to,” Eliot promised.

Parker let out her breath in a huge gust, and then smiled. “Never.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings in this chapter for: death; semi-graphic descriptions of a corpse; mild emetophobia warning; references to abuse by parental figures
> 
> sorry for the inconsistent length of these chapters. im going by tone shifts/themes rather than length.

They saw their first corpse that afternoon. 

They'd walked a mile or two further into the city, moving away from the office they'd escaped but no longer feeling eyes on them, a target painted on their backs. Coming into a rich-looking neighborhood, Eliot had grinned and gestured to a house. 

“Let's go find some stuff to steal,” he said. 

Parker beamed and practically ran into the house. The back half was completely collapsed and they picked over once-expensive furniture strewn about the front room, overturning chairs and poking inside drawers in search of something of value. 

“They're gonna have diamonds, I know it,” Parker said as she felt along the bottom of a desk drawer. 

“There's nothing in here,” Eliot said, throwing aside the last of the books he was checking for hollowed-out segments. It was a long shot, but he'd always wanted a hollowed-out book like in the movies. If he ever found a real one he'd probably be more excited over the book itself than whatever was important enough to be hidden inside it. 

“There was an office down the hall,” Parker said over her shoulder, crouching to search under another drawer. Eliot went down the hall to the home office in question and froze in his tracks. 

A middle-aged man sat slumped against the wall, his eyes wide open and unseeing. His shirt was torn and bloodied, and a black stain puddled under him. His left arm was almost torn from his body, and a bookshelf lay heavily across his legs and part of his torso. A thin trickle of dried blood seeped down into his collar from his ear, and Eliot retched. 

Eliot stumbled, grabbing onto the door jamb for support as he breathed raggedly, his vision swirling black at the edges. 

“Did you find th-- _ whoa,  _ are you okay?” Parker asked, coming around the corner and seeing him leaning heavily against the wall. She rushed over and he held up a hand. 

“Don’t,” he warned, his voice sounding strangled, and she stopped. She looked confused as he tried to catch the breath that had been knocked out of him, and then she looked past him through the door and her eyes widened. 

“Oh,” she gasped. 

She let out a breath forcefully and wobbled. She took a couple steps until she could lean against the opposite side of the doorframe and pressed her forehead to the wood. 

When Eliot could breathe again he forced his eyes to stay away from the dead man as he turned around. He reached out for Parker and guided her back to the front room and onto the couch, shoving some debris out of the way first. 

Parker was trembling, and she reached out with shaking hands to keep Eliot close when he started to lean away, and he realized he, too, was shaking hard. Eliot wrapped his arms tight around her shoulders and she ducked her head, clutching tight to the front of his shirt. 

When at last their shaking subsided Parker leaned away, putting a foot of distance between herself and Eliot, her eyes wild. Eliot was willing to bet he didn't look much better. 

“I've never seen a body look like that,” she whispered. 

“I'd never seen a dead body, period,” Eliot said. “‘Cept funerals.”

Parker’s expression shuttered. “I have.” 

Eliot waited, watching her in case she started panicking again, but she didn't elaborate. After half a minute she looked up, her expression back to normal. 

“We should leave,” she said. 

Eliot agreed and they gathered their things, carefully keeping their backs to the hallway as if to give the man privacy. 

Once outside the house they took off, not bothering to think about where they'd come from or the general direction they had been heading, just picking a direction and walking, separately trying to deal with their thoughts. Four blocks later Eliot saw a couple of houses left standing almost unscathed, and he pointed wordlessly at them. 

Parker hesitated, a terrified expression flicking over her face, before she composed herself and nodded. 

The door of the first house was locked, and Eliot studied each of the front windows for signs of life while Parker picked the lock. A locked front door in an evacuated zone meant the owners either had stayed inside through the attack, had for some reason stopped to lock the door as they fled the city, or had never made it home once the attack started. Any of these options seemed equally likely. 

When Parker opened the door, though, none of the above were true. The house, or at least the front room, was empty, devoid of furnishings save some construction materials stacked in a corner. The walls were unpainted drywall, patches of sealant and putty shining brighter white than the drywall itself. A handful of food wrappers lay strewn about, and most of the windows were intact, too. Eerily, if it wasn't for the destruction outside the windows, Eliot would've thought he wasn't in San Francisco at all anymore. The scene was familiar to him, having worked alongside his father in homes under construction or renovation for a few summers, and he felt an uneasy wave of nostalgia. 

“We’re not going to find anything valuable here,” Parker said. 

Eliot took a step farther into the room, his boots echoing faintly over the bare concrete floor. 

“Might make a good headquarters, though,” he murmured, and stopped dead, listening hard. 

It was probably the memory of working with his father, but Eliot couldn't shake the feeling that there was someone else in the house. 

“Why are you whispering?” Parker whispered, coming up to his elbow. 

Eliot put a finger to his lips. Parker looked around furtively and settled into an observant silence. 

They crept through the ground floor, looking for any sign of another person, and neither said it, but they also kept a sharp lookout for corpses. 

The ground floor was completely unfurnished, save a couple of upturned five-gallon buckets in the kitchen. They slipped up the stairs, freezing when the second to last stair creaked as Eliot put his weight on it. The house stayed silent. 

The second floor consisted of a short hallway with four closed doors and a window overlooking the street outside at one end. One door turned out to be an empty linen closet, and Parker left it open rather than try to close it quietly. 

The second door revealed a human form sprawled out on the ground on a mass of blankets, and Eliot’s heart leapt into his throat. Parker stilled next to him. 

Eliot took a cautious step into the room and studied the figure. 

A young man--a kid, really--lay sleeping or dead on the blankets, sprawled on his stomach and not moving. Eliot winced and steeled himself, then slowly reached down to feel for a pulse. 

As soon as his fingers touched the kid’s neck his eyes flew open. Both of them recoiled away from each other, the kid jerking to a sitting position and scrambling backwards until his back hit the wall behind him with a dull  _ thunk. _ Eliot took a huge step back, raising his hands automatically to fight. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Parker dash out of the room. 

Eliot and the kid stared at each other, breathing hard, for what felt like a full minute. Parker reappeared in the door cautiously. Eliot realized his fists were still clenched and readied and he forced himself to relax his hands and drop them to his sides. 

“Who are you?” the kid asked. 

“My names Eliot.” He pointed to the girl in the doorway and the boy’s eyes darted over briefly. God, he looked terrified. “That's Parker.” 

“What are you doing here?” the kid asked, edging to his left to be a little farther from Parker at the door and Eliot, and his eyes flicked to the window as if he was debating it as an escape route. 

“We ain't here to hurt you,” Eliot reassured him, raising his hands in surrender. “Didn't even know anyone was here. We thought you were hurt… or dead or somethin’... and I was just checkin’ for a pulse.” 

The kid raised a hand and rubbed at the spot where Eliot had pressed his fingers to his neck. 

“What are  _ you _ doin’ here?” Eliot asked. 

The kid looked sheepish. “I-I live here,” he said. He wasn't a good liar. 

“Kid…” Eliot said, a little warning leaking into his voice, and he stopped himself. He wasn't this kid’s brother. “I know you ain't livin’ here.” He gestured to the small assortment of items spread around the room: a couple of dusty blankets, a backpack, open and with clothes spilling out of it, a box of cereal, a slightly battered laptop. 

“What's your name?” Parker piped up, moving into the room to stand next to Eliot. 

The kid looked suspicious and stayed quiet. 

“We won't tell anyone you're here,” Parker promised. “We ran away ourselves.” 

The kid hesitated, studying them mistrustfully. “Alec,” he finally said. 

“You got family in the city, Alec?” Eliot asked. 

Alec’s expression clouded and he looked away. “I did.” 

Parker let out a breath. “Did they die?” she asked quietly. 

Alec shook his head, and to Eliot’s dismay he sniffled and wiped at his eyes. “No. They left me.” 

Parker froze next to Eliot. 

“Four years ago,” Alec clarified, and Eliot’s jaw clenched automatically. “I'm a foster kid,” Alec explained. “Or, I was.” 

Parker smiled a little bit. “Me too,” she said, and Alec looked up at her. “How old are you, Alec?” Parker asked. 

The kid hesitated. “Twelve,” he said, and Eliot heard the lie there, but decided not to press it. 

“You got anyone with you, kid?” Eliot asked. “You shouldn't be on your own.” 

Alec set his jaw and scrambled to his feet. For a maybe-twelve-year-old, he was tall, almost taller than Eliot. 

“My friend is coming back soon,” Alec said. 

Eliot pursed his lips and paused for a long moment. “You can come with us,” he said. “We can keep you safe.” 

Alec shook his head. “I'm fine.” 

Parker shrugged off her backpack and rummaged around for a moment, then pulled out two cans of carrots they’d taken from the first house. 

“Here,” she said, and handed them to Alec, who accepted them with a confused frown. “You can't survive on cereal alone. You'll get sick. Trust me,” she said, and Eliot snorted. 

“I'll be okay,” Alec said, raising his chin stubbornly. 

“Uh-huh,” Eliot said neutrally. He went to the door. He paused, then turned back. “Steer clear of an Army dude named Ford,” he warned. “He’ll send you back into the system.” 

Alec nodded, and Eliot and Parker left, going downstairs and out the front door. They felt eyes on them from a second floor window as they walked further down the street. 

“He’ll be okay, right?” Parker asked after a while. 

Eliot shrugged.  _ “You _ turned out okay, I guess.” 

Parker shoved him and he laughed. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings in this chapter for: mentions of blades and guns; brief mention of minor injury; discussions of violence; references to parental neglect and abuse by parental figures; mention of death and child death

They were far from alone in the city, they found out over the next month. 

Every day they saw more and more scavengers. The first two weeks they moved around enough that they never saw the same people twice, but once they settled down and established a base camp they ran into a few people almost every day. 

These other looters were mostly college or high school-age boys, but a few adult men were around, and a couple of women of all ages. By all accounts Eliot and Parker were the youngest of all the scavengers they’d seen. There were a few refugees coming back into the city later in the month, trying to find their homes and belongings, but the military usually shooed them gently out of the city again before long. 

Parker and Eliot spent their days exploring the city and looting. The more intact a building was, the more likely it was that it was already claimed as a base camp or target, they found, but after two weeks of crashing in collapsed buildings at night they managed to lay claim to a house that had only one collapse in the rear room of the top floor. 

It was a townhouse with three bedrooms originally, arranged over three narrow stories. The third bedroom was the one that had collapsed, and it was so badly damaged that a portion of the ceiling of the office below had caved in. For the most part, though, the house was sturdy enough for them, and they quickly set it up as a base camp. They dragged the small mattress from the second bedroom into the master bedroom and used the now-mostly-empty second bedroom as a storeroom of sorts, to hold their loot and supplies, so the first floor still looked vacant. At night Eliot slept on the mattress on the floor and Parker in the bigger bed, their shoes next to the bed and a small bag each packed and ready to go by their escape route out the window in case they had to leave quickly. 

It wasn’t much, but it quickly became home. 

The neighboring houses were vacant and, when they moved in, undisturbed since their occupants fled and Axe-head fell. Eliot and Parker picked over the wreckage, finding camping gear and canned goods, along with small stores of cash and a few valuables. Eliot found a beautiful knife with a sheath and now wore it at his waist, and Parker’s new favorite item was a single two-carat diamond in a simple setting on a chain, which she found in the house across the street and wore around her neck. 

When asked by Eliot why she wore it tucked into her shirt instead of out and visible, she put her nose into the air. “It makes me feel pretty,” she said, “and that’s for  _ me, _ not for other people.” She continued tying careful knots into the rope for their second escape route, and pursed her lips. “Also, diamonds are shiny and it could give away my position in low light.” 

They hadn’t yet found any way to actually  _ sell _ their loot; they hadn’t thought of that before they arrived in the city. Valuables began piling up in their storeroom. Jewelry, electronics, art, collectables, even a few weapons. They had an entire corner dedicated solely to flat screen televisions. It was making them antsy, and they spent less and less time out scavenging every day and more time at home taking inventory and guarding their stash. 

So far, they’d been lucky. They always saw the soldiers before the soldiers saw them, other scavengers either mistook them for refugees or let them go untouched because of their age, and they’d only sustained little injuries like splinters and rolled ankles. 

On the twenty-first of September, a little over a month after they successfully made it into the city, their luck ran out. 

They were raiding a bank, because Parker had always wanted to try. Eliot was watching the door while Parker cooed at the vault and tried to crack it. The street outside was clear, the only noise a faint hum of distant helicopters and vehicle traffic. 

After several minutes, Parker cackled. “I got it!” she called, and Eliot checked out the door one more time before hurrying down the short hallway behind the counter to the vault door. Just before he got there he heard a satisfying  _ thunk _ as the bolts in the door retracted, and he helped a grinning Parker heave open the door. The power to the bank still hadn’t been restored, and without motorized hinges helping it along, the vault door was far too heavy for Parker to shoulder open herself. 

When Eliot stepped back, panting a little, he saw Parker already standing stock-still in the doorway. He leaned around her to look back and forth between her face and the vault in case he was missing something. 

Nope, she was staring open-mouthed and a little dazed at the inside of the vault, lined with rows of locked cabinets and safe deposit boxes. Her flashlight beam shone on the back wall of the small room, and the reflection off the metal cabinets lit her face. Eliot snorted at her expression and she closed her mouth. 

“You know what could be in those boxes?” she asked at a murmur, as though raising her voice would disturb the money. 

“What?” Eliot asked. 

_ “Anything,” _ Parker said, taking a step inside. 

Eliot just followed her as she chose a cabinet at random and pulled out her lockpicks. He held her flashlight for her, but she didn’t even need it, as she closed her eyes and stuck her tongue between her teeth as she picked the locks. When the second of the two locks on her chosen cabinet clicked, she smiled dreamily and slowly opened her eyes. 

_ What a fuckin’ weirdo,  _ Eliot thought a little fondly.  

As she pulled open the door, though, they heard footsteps on the floor outside the vault. Someone in the hallway cursed. Parker turned, wide-eyed in panic, to Eliot, who barely saw her; his eyes were trained on the door and he automatically flicked off both their flashlights. 

“Requesting backup at HSBC Bank,” the person murmured, presumably into a radio. “Possible looters inside the vault.” 

They were cornered. The only way out was past whoever was in the hallway, and if they had a radio they probably had guns. They hadn’t seen any police returning to the city, but they’d been expecting them any day now. 

Parker stood and tensed to run, but Eliot caught her sleeve and shook his head. 

“We’re trapped,” he mouthed at her. She looked around for an exit as if to confirm, but it was no use. It was a fucking vault. 

They waited, their hearts thumping heavy in their throats and shoulders tensed, until they heard the front door open what felt like minutes later. 

“This way,” the person in the hallway said in a loud whisper, and Eliot almost rolled his eyes through his panic. For presumably highly trained professionals, whoever was stalking them was really bad at sneaking around. 

At least one more set of footsteps came closer, and after a moment the newcomers darted into view, shining flashlight beams right into Eliot and Parker’s faces. 

“Hands up!” one of them shouted. The beam was too bright for Eliot to see what organization they were with, but Eliot could see the silhouettes of two people, standing like they held handguns alongside their flashlights. 

Eliot put up his hands and out of the corner of his eye he saw Parker’s hands shoot up too. The two people edged closer slower than really necessary, and when they were about a yard away Eliot saw military uniforms and cursed inwardly. Ford wouldn’t let them get away this time. 

“Who are you?” one of them asked, and Eliot recognized the voice as the first one to notice them. Eliot held his tongue and tried to make himself look as calm as he could. The soldier huffed and lowered her gun and flashlight. “You need to come with us,” she informed them, and reached to her waist as if to grab her handcuffs, but she hesitated and dropped her hands. 

The two soldiers, one of which was named Hall and the other Benson, searched them and, finding Eliot’s knives, muscled them out of the vault and outside. 

As they were led into the weak sunlight they saw two more soldiers approaching, and Hall and Benson briefed them in clipped tones. One of the newcomers spoke into a radio, and a few minutes later a jeep pulled up with two men inside. The man in the passenger seat turned to study Eliot and Parker when they were shoved in the backseat alongside Hall and Benson on either side. 

After a long moment of silence while they drove he turned his attention on the two soldiers who had discovered them. “Did they say who they are?” he asked in an English accent. 

“Negative, sir,” Benson said. 

“I think I’ve got an idea,” the man said, his piercing gaze turned again on Eliot. 

Eliot fought to stay still under the man’s intense eye contact and return it. He didn’t do so well with eye contact under normal circumstances, and in distress like this it was almost impossible. He managed a solid ten seconds before discomfort won over and he tore his gaze away. The man in the front seat kept staring, though, and Eliot felt his skin crawling. Finally he turned around. 

Unlike Ford, this man didn’t make conversation with the other soldiers in the car, just sat staring out the windshield as they drove across the city. Parker squirmed next to Eliot, who didn’t feel much more comfortable. The longer the silence persisted the more noticeable Parker’s stims became, to the point where she was tugging at her hair with one hand and scratching at her leg hard with the other as they pulled up to the building they’d been taken to weeks ago. 

They were muscled down the same hallway and taken to the same conference room, and along the way every single person in the building turned to watch them. Eliot looked at everything but the people watching them, in part in attempt to find some way out of this mess but mostly because each pair of eyes burned his skin. 

The man with the English accent led the way without looking back once, and only when he sat with a casual sigh across the table from them did they see him fully from the front. His name plate said “Sterling” and he watched them with half-hooded eyes as they quietly sat. Hall and Benson both stood outside the door. 

“You remember this room, don’t you?” Sterling asked, and he waited for an answer with his eyebrows raised. Neither Parker nor Eliot responded or even moved. “This is the room you tased a soldier in and then shimmied through the ducts.” 

So he  _ did _ know who they were. Eliot tried not to let his surprise show on his face, but from the look on Sterling’s face as he glanced at Parker, she didn’t quite rein it in. 

“Too bad I wasn’t on duty that day,” Sterling said, “or you’d’ve never escaped.” He leaned forward with a smug smile and tapped two fingers on the table. “You’re not getting out of here this time,” he said. 

Eliot swallowed reflexively and Sterling’s eyes darted to him and he stared at Eliot for a long moment. God, he was so creepy. Like a large cat watching its prey. 

“Unlike last time, we know exactly who you are,” Sterling said, not looking away from Eliot. “We have your fingerprints. We have the missing person’s reports filed by both your parents. We have your  _ names.” _ Sterling leaned back in his chair and rubbed his fingertips together with one hand. “Daniel, is it? And Anna?” 

He wasn’t lying. Eliot couldn’t help but clench his jaw and his fists and he saw Parker twitch.

Sterling watched them react, his smug smile growing wider. They might as well have told him their names themselves. 

“Yes, Anna, I spoke to your father on the phone,” Sterling said casually. 

“He’s  _ not  _ my father,” Parker spat, then clapped her hand over her mouth. Eliot elbowed her hard. 

Sterling looked amused. “Legally, he is,” he said. “I spoke to him about your escape last month. He was very interested to hear how you assaulted two soldiers and escaped military custody in a city under martial law.” 

Eliot glanced at Parker to see her put down her hand and shrink back into her chair. 

“You are aware that both of those are felony offenses?” Sterling asked, leaning forward again. “You could go to prison--adult prison--for  _ years. _ And your father said a little something about ‘learning your lesson’. And now I’ll have to phone him  _ again _ to tell him all about how his daughter was caught robbing a bank.” 

Eliot growled. “That’s  _ enough,” _ he spat, smacking the tabletop. Parker flinched. 

Sterling raised his eyebrows at Eliot and inclined his head.  _ “Your _ father wanted you to come home so he could ‘deal with you himself’. A very colorful man,” Sterling said mildly. “I’m not sure he has the money for the kind of lawyer you’ll need if you want to stay out of prison, though.” 

He spoke entirely in a quiet, even voice, but Eliot felt like Sterling had been screaming at him. He winced at the mention of his father and looked down, all the fight draining out of him. 

Sterling smirked. “No comment, then?” He waited a long moment, then stood. “I’ll just go phone your parents,” he said, “and look through your bags, and then I’ll be back to read you the charges depending on what I find there.” 

He tapped the table with his fingertips cheerfully and turned to go. He paused just inside the door. “Oh, and don’t even think about trying to escape again,” he warned them tiredly. “We’ve put motion sensors in the ducts and I’m posting two guards in the room.” 

Eliot’s mind was racing, trying to figure out a way out of this without the ducts. He could maybe take two guards at a time if Parker was helping, but that left the rest of the staff in the office and no way to plan ahead.  _ If  _ Sterling wasn’t bluffing about the vents, that is. He glanced at Parker, who stayed slumped in her seat but darted her eyes around the room. She was doing the same thing. 

As the door closed behind Sterling, leaving two guards in the room with them, Parker sat up and leaned close. She looked panicked. 

“I can’t go back,” she whispered. 

Eliot just nodded. He couldn’t go back either, but didn’t see any way out of this.

“There’s no way out of this room,” Parker whispered, her eyes darting to the sentries. “Unless you have the taser. Do you have the taser?” 

“They took it,” Eliot whispered back. 

Parker squeezed her eyes shut for one heartbreaking second, looking completely terrified, and then leaned back in her chair, her expression resigned. “Then we’re done for.” 

Eliot fell silent for a long moment. “I'm sorry,” he whispered. 

Parker shook her head. 

“I shoulda been watching the door,” Eliot continued. 

Parker hesitated and Eliot felt her anger shift a little in his direction. He offered up his hand in a silent apology and she took it. He squeezed tight. 

“But, hey, it was an adventure,” he offered, and she huffed out a little laugh. 

“We saw a dead guy,” she agreed. 

“A few dead guys,” he amended. 

“I stopped counting,” she said, a little sadly. 

“I didn't,” he whispered. 

They sat in silence for a few minutes, and then Parker withdrew her hand and turned to their guards. 

“What happened to Admiral Ford?” she asked. 

The guard on the left—Esposito, his name tag read—hesitated, glancing at his partner before turning his gaze back on Parker. 

“He's on leave,” Esposito said. “Death in the family.”

Eliot gritted his teeth as his stomach tightened. “Was it his son?” he asked, already knowing the answer. 

Esposito hesitated again before nodding curtly. 

“Shit,” Eliot breathed. 

And they'd witnessed the immediate aftermath. 

They all waited in silence for a long few minutes, and then Sterling returned looking highly frustrated. He shooed the guards outside the room and stood opposite Eliot and Parker with his hands flat on the table. 

“I've just gotten off the phone with a Marcie Gillespie,” Sterling said. Eliot swallowed. “She's on her way here. So I'm not to charge you until she returns.” 

Eliot wasn't sure how to react. Marcie could argue with the best of them and might be able to get them out of any charges, but that would also mean she would likely take both of them back to Oklahoma with her. 

“She's in California?” Parker asked breathlessly. 

Sterling nodded slowly, his mouth pressed into a hard line. He slowly pulled out the chair in front of him and sat, folding his arms over his chest and narrowing his eyes. He studied each of them in turn. 

“Why?” he asked after a long minute. When neither of them responded he clarified. “Why run away from home? Why cross the country to come to an active martial law site?” 

Eliot shrugged. “Why's anyone run away from home? My parents are shit and so’s Archie,” he said. “Been planning this for a couple years. Only got a good opportunity last month.” 

Sterling’s expression didn't change. He just squinted at them like Eliot's answer wasn't good enough. Parker squirmed under the scrutiny and Eliot shifted a little in his seat. Finally he seemed to drop it. 

“In any case, once your stepmother arrives I'll be charging you and it won't matter why you ran away,” he said casually. 

He continued watching them, though, until they heard a loud, unfamiliar voice outside the door speaking to the guards. Through the glass they watched as the guards stepped apart to let the woman through the door. 

It wasn't Marcie. 

This woman was tall, several inches taller than Marcie, and had dark brown hair instead of bottle blonde. She had dark, kind eyes that wouldn't have belonged on Marcie’s face, and her clothes were far nicer than anything Eliot's stepmother owned. 

Eliot blinked and tried to wrestle his expression under control in case Sterling was watching. He wasn't sure what was going on but if this was a means to escape he wasn't going to say no. He glanced at Parker who looked faintly confused and willed her silently to go along with whatever was about to happen. She met his eyes briefly and nodded minutely. 

The woman opened the door and immediately began chattering away in a clearly-fake southern accent. 

_ “There _ you are, Danny, I was worried  _ sick!”  _ she cried. She came close and pulled him into a hug when he stood awkwardly. “Your father, too, don't you  _ ever _ do somethin’ like that again.” She looked at Sterling over Eliot's shoulder and stuck out a hand without withdrawing from the hug. “Marcie Gillespie. I’m Daniel’s stepmother.”

Sterling hesitantly shook her hand. As she withdrew her hand she stepped back from the hug and put both hands on Eliot’s shoulders. “God, you been gone so long. You need a haircut,” she said, feathering long, tan fingers through Eliot’s hair which now hung past his ears. 

She let go and turned to Parker. “Anna, come here,” she said, and motioned Parker over and pulled her into a hug, too. Parker stood stiffly in the hug until the woman stepped back. 

“Right, right, you don't like hugs,” she seemed to remember. 

“Ma’am, please,” Sterling said with a degree of annoyance. “I need to charge them.” 

The woman put up a finger and turned to face Sterling. “Oh, no you don't,” she said forcefully. “I didn't drive across five states to go home without them. I'm taking them  _ home.  _ You wanna charge them you can come to Oklahoma.” 

Sterling was speechless for a glorious moment. His mouth even hung open a tiny bit. “I can't—let you  _ take _ them. They assaulted two soldiers, escaped military custody, robbed a  _ bank—” _

_ “Almost _ robbed a bank,” Parker corrected him, looking ashamed with herself. 

_ “Almost _ robbed a bank,” Sterling amended himself in frustration, his face turning red. “And undoubtedly stole thousands of dollars worth of property from private citizens. Not to mention trespassing in an active martial law site for over a month and evading military custody!” He was shouting now, a vein beginning to stand out on his forehead. 

The pseudo-Marcie looked unfazed. “You've also questioned them without a lawyer  _ or their parents  _ present twice. You have no standing to keep them here  _ or _ charge them.” 

Sterling stood speechless again and he looked like he wasn't even breathing. 

The woman turned to Eliot and Parker and raised an eyebrow with an almost imperceptible smirk. “Come along, kids. Time to go home.” 

Eliot allowed himself a tiny triumphant smile at Parker before he followed the woman towards the door. 

“You,” Sterling said, regaining the power of speech. They paused inside the door and looked back. Sterling was pointing angrily between Eliot and Parker. “You two stay out of my city.” 

The woman blinked lazily at him. “Can you see that my stepson and his friend get their belongings back?” she asked in a tone that sounded as though Sterling had told them to have a nice day, wonderful to meet you. Sterling glowered for a long moment and then nodded curtly. 

The woman smiled a charming smile at him and led Eliot and Parker out of the conference room. Sterling followed two furious steps behind and nodded to a young soldier when the woman asked him to find their things. 

Once they had their small daypacks back the woman led them outside, past a dozen soldiers who stared at the three of them. There was a newish SUV, covered in dust from the roads, parked outside, and the woman gestured to it. 

Eliot warily peeked in through the windows and trunk and checked the undercarriage in case this was a trap. The woman waited alone in the car behind the wheel and Eliot shrugged at Parker and they got in. 

“I'm sorry I wasn't able to brief you beforehand,” the woman said, her southern accent dropping and a British accent taking its place. “God, that man is unpleasant, isn't he?” 

“Who are you?” Eliot asked from the backseat, a hand braced on the hilt of the knife he'd slid back into his pocket just in case. 

“You're not Marcie,” Parker observed, her eyes narrowed in suspicion. 

“I'm not, no,” the woman said, pulling down her sun visor to look in the mirror briefly before she turned on the car. “Sophie Devereaux. Distributor.” 

“Distributor of what?” Eliot asked. 

“Well, what have you found in the city?” Sophie asked in answer. “I run a distribution network for looters and thieves following disasters.” 

“What, so, selling stuff?” Eliot asked. 

“Collection, appraisal, refurbishment and cleaning, and yes, selling,” Sophie said, pulling out of the makeshift parking lot in front of the building. 

“How did you find us?” Parker asked. 

“I have a hacker under my employ monitoring military frequencies and phone calls out of that building and across the city,” Sophie explained. “He alerted me to two teenagers picked up for bank robbery and a connection to an earlier escape.” She stopped at a stop sign and turned in her seat slightly. “He intercepted a phone call to your stepmother and I answered it.” 

“Why?” 

Sophie turned back to the front. “I’d like to offer a partnership. You seem to be talented and have avoided detection in the city twice as long as anyone else in my network.” 

Eliot hesitated. “What kind of partnership?” 

Sophie smiled. “Let's talk somewhere more comfortable.” 

Parker shook her head. “This might be a trap.” 

Sophie sighed. “How can I assure you it's not?” 

“You can't,” Eliot answered bluntly. 

“You can meet any of my associates you feel the need to,” Sophie offered. 

“No,” Eliot said, then put up his hands. “Listen, lady, we appreciate the help gettin’ out an’ all, but we can handle it.” 

Parker turned in her seat and leaned over the center console into the backseat. 

“We can't sell our stuff ourselves,” she hissed in reminder. She sat back in her seat, but sideways, and watched Eliot with wide eyes. 

Eliot sighed. “What kind of partnership are we talkin’,” he acquiesced. “Tell us  _ that _ , an’ we’ll think about it.” 

Sophie smiled wider. “You do what you like in the city. Every two weeks or after a large haul you seek me out either in town or I will provide transportation of you and your loot to wherever I am. I pay for a hotel for you for one night, if I am not in the city, while my team works on your shipment. The next day you receive half of the estimated profit in payment and I provide transport back into the city.” 

“Why only half?” Parker asked with a little whine in her voice. 

“The remaining half pays for transportation, hotel stays, my services, and my team’s services and living expenses,” Sophie explained, taking a left turn. 

“Hold on, where are you taking us?” Eliot said, holding out a hand. 

Sophie raised a groomed eyebrow. “I assumed you wanted to be returned to your base or whatever you're calling it.” 

“Okay, but how'd you know where it is?” 

Sophie tapped her ear. “My hacker has been working.” 

“What, you got earbuds?” Eliot asked, leaning forward and studying the side of Sophie's head. Sure enough, there was a tiny, barely visible clear plug in her ear. 

“Can you show me what all you've found?” Sophie asked. 

Parker shot a look at Eliot and they had a short, silent debate. Finally Parker sighed. “Yeah, we’ll show it to you.” 

Sophie smiled encouragingly. She leaned over to Parker and whispered conspiratorially. “You can keep any cash you find for yourselves.” 

Parker perked up and nodded. 

They chatted about the partnership for the rest of the way, and at their house they led Sophie up rickety stairs to their storeroom, which was luckily untouched as far as they could tell. 

Sophie hummed and ran an expert eye over the televisions stacked in the corner and the jewelry Parker showed her. She stepped back, smiling. 

“This is an impressive catch,” she said approvingly. “Actually larger than any of my other associates.” 

“Really?” Parker asked, preening. 

Sophie nodded and turned to study the room at large. “Not very secure, though….” She ran a hand over the doorjamb. “Hardison,” she called, and Eliot was confused until he remembered her earbud. “Can security enhancements be arranged for our new friends?” she asked. She listened for a moment and smiled. “Excellent. Thank you.” 

She turned back to Eliot and Parker. “I can take a shipment on Tuesday, and my team can retrofit your house with better security and a generator at the same time.” 

Eliot blinked. A generator. 

Sophie saw his surprise and smiled. “I take care of my colleagues.” She stepped towards them and held out a hand to Eliot. “So,” she said, “are we to have a partnership?” 

Eliot weighed their options. Their homebase was compromised and their loot no longer a secret. They had no idea if they could trust this woman and her mysterious ‘team’. On the other hand, she broke them out of jail, quite literally, and was offering them a job and a  _ generator _ . 

He looked to Parker, who seemed to be happy with the arrangement, and he nodded, first at Parker, then at Sophie, and shook her hand. 

Sophie smiled wider. She really did look trustworthy. 

Well. Time would tell if that was true. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings in this chapter for: brief mention of death; mild threats of violence; mild ableist language

Sophie Devereaux was trustworthy, they found out, and had _ridiculously_ expensive taste.

The first time she put them up in a hotel outside the city it was a huge, gorgeous resort in San Jose. When Parker and Eliot climbed clumsily out of the shipping crate they’d been smuggled through the roadblock inside they stared open-mouthed up at the gleaming white walls. It was the first building they’d seen in three months that was neither damaged nor hopelessly grimy. They suddenly felt very small and dirty in comparison.

Two men climbed out of the cab of the truck. They were Sophie’s men and had joked around with Eliot and Parker while loading up their haul in the trunk a couple hours earlier, though they wore fatigues and carried sidearms as a disguise. One of them had assured them the guns were fake but Eliot didn't quite believe him.

The “soldiers” helped them pull their personal packs from the secret hold up under the truck and then one of them led Parker and Eliot into the hotel. The inside was immaculate and had plush, expensive-looking furniture arranged carefully around the lobby. The only people around were a handful of people in clean coveralls and greasy hands chatting at the far end, a maid pushing a housekeeping cart across a hall the other direction, and two receptionists behind the long granite counter. The “soldier” led them further into the hotel with a casual wave to one of the receptionists, up one floor on the elevator and down a series of convoluted hallways.

He finally slowed and knocked on a door with no other doors nearby. Probably a big suite. Several seconds later Sophie answered the door. She was as well-dressed as usual and she smiled warmly when she saw who it was.

“Thanks, Hector,” she said to the “soldier,” who winked and left. “Hello,” she said to Parker and Eliot. She stepped to the side to usher them in the suite. “Not too cramped in the truck, I hope?”

Parker shook her head as she came inside. “It was comfy.”

Eliot snorted and followed. “She napped.”

Sophie smiled. She padded barefoot into the suite, which was lushly furnished and featured a huge balcony on the opposite wall, and to a silver cart piled high with food. She plucked a couple of grapes from a plate and popped one in her mouth. Eliot’s mouth started to water. They hadn't had any food that wasn't shelf stable in almost three months. Canned peas and saltines only appealed for so long.

“Help yourselves,” Sophie offered, and Parker didn't need a second invitation. She pulled a plate from the side of the cart and slid a handful of little sandwiches off one of the platters and, to Eliot's surprise, put an orange and two big florets of broccoli on her plate with no prompting. Getting her to eat any sort of vegetables or fruit had been next to impossible in the entire time he'd known her, and with their diets limited so much more it had gotten worse.

Eliot followed suit, piling up a plate with food, feeling bad until he realized that there was far too much food on the cart for Sophie to have done anything but order it with this exact plan in mind.

Sophie watched them for a moment and then went to the couch, lounging with her feet tucked up next to her. Parker sat right down on the floor next to the cart to eat and Eliot moved to a plush chair.

“Tell me about the city,” Sophie said, but had waited ten seconds too long to start talking, because both Eliot and Parker had their faces stuffed with food. She laughed. “Never mind. I'll tell you about the rest of the world while you eat.”

She told them about the rationing that had begun in California, because Axe-head had taken out some important agriculture on its path of destruction, and that governor and president had officially lifted the evacuation of San Francisco, though the roads in and out of the city were still heavily regulated because the city could no longer support the population it once had. Eliot nodded. They'd seen people coming back to the neighborhood, picking over their ruined homes for keepsakes and valuables (whatever was left, at least) and leaving again. Occasionally a family would be escorted by a jeep carrying a soldier or two. Eliot and Parker had had to lay low for almost a week, moving most of their things from their home base and hiding the rest in a hollow in the rubble in one room, when the neighbors started returning. They squatted in an empty house for a few days until the family that had once lived in their house, a nice looking man with two kids and a grandmother, showed up, picked over their things, and left.

Sophie told them about the miraculous resolution to a war in Eastern Europe, a couple of rebellions breaking out in other parts of the world. She told them about a scientist out east—hardly older than Eliot, really, she made sure to mention—who had a doctorate degree already and had come up with a revolutionary theory about the alien: it had emerged from under the ocean rather than coming from space through the atmosphere. The kid was laughingstock of about half the scientific community and praised by the other half. That was just a few days ago, and there hadn't been any more news since then.

Sophie watched Eliot set aside his empty plate and smiled softly. “I bet you'll be wanting to rest and get cleaned up,” she said. “My team is working on your things. I'll have someone take you to your suite and I'll send for you tomorrow.”

“Thanks, Sophie,” Eliot said, getting to his feet.

“This place has an excellent pool and fitness center if you're interested,” Sophie said, picking up a phone. “I'll arrange for some laundry pickup, too.”

She spoke into the phone and a minute later there was a knock on the door. Sophie stayed put on the couch. “That’ll be Hector. See you tomorrow,” she said with a wave.

Hector took them down another complex route to a suite and handed over a keycard before leaving, clapping a hand down on Eliot’s shoulder as he turned away.

The suite was smaller than Sophie’s, but spacious and clean. Two bedrooms were off to one side, each with a huge bed, and a huge bathroom stood in between. They had a balcony and a big television, and almost before they could take off their shoes and put down their bags there was a knock on the door.

Eliot opened it cautiously and a bellhop pushed a cart laden with more fruits, vegetables, pastries, and meats inside. He also had two large paper bags tucked into the lower level of the cart, and he explained that Miss Devereaux had arranged for some fresh produce to be sent packaged up for them to take back with them.

Eliot just blinked in surprised until the bellhop left and then turned back to Parker, who had her mouth hanging open.

“I'm so glad we’re partners with her,” Parker whispered.

Eliot grinned. “Me too.”

That night they slept sounder than they had in months, safely behind securely locked doors, squeaky clean, and full of good food. The next day they wandered the grounds until someone in coveralls caught up with them in the early afternoon and sent them to a conference room.

There were a couple of people working in there, taking apart a couple of the laptops they'd stolen, and Sophie stood over a file of papers and muttered tiredly to herself.

She looked up when Eliot and Parker entered and didn't smile. Eliot felt uneasy at that, abruptly thinking that their luck where she was concerned had run out. But Sophie just beckoned them over.

“I'm sorry, I've got to run you out of town sooner than I expected,” she said, rubbing her brow. “Some of my other associates are coming unexpectedly this afternoon and I'll need your room. They're… less sociable than you two.”

Parker snorted and Eliot elbowed her. Sophie finally smiled a little.

“I know. I've got your check here. It was a smaller shipment this time—”

“So many people were coming back to the city,” Parker interrupted by way of explanation.

“Yes, I know. I'm not upset,” Sophie assured her. “It's to be expected, and your first few shipments were more than enough to know I want to continue our partnership. You needn't worry.”

Eliot sighed gratefully. “Thanks.”

Sophie handed over a check. Eliot raised his eyebrows at the amount and showed it to Parker. It was more than they'd expected to make this shipment, and they'd also gotten some food out of the trip.

“I'll be in the city next weekend to visit Hardison and I've arranged to get you some new documents,” Sophie said. She reached across the table and pulled a datebook towards her and studied it for a moment. “I can come get you Saturday at noon,” she said.

“Okay,” Eliot said. He didn't particularly _want_ to meet the mysterious Hardison, but having some kind of papers would help them if they got caught again.

Sophie smiled tiredly. “Excellent. It was lovely to see you two again, thank you. Take care. I'll have Hector and Marty meet you in front with the truck in fifteen minutes.”

They left, hurriedly retracing their route to their suite to gather their things. They'd found this morning that Hector had purposefully led them in a roundabout way from the lobby to Sophie's suite and then to their own, using the hotel’s unusual architecture to his advantage, and their suite was actually very close to Sophie’s. Security, they guessed.

Soon they were on their way back to the city and back to their regular routine.

Since the city had been mostly picked over by both scavengers and rightful citizens returning, it was getting harder and harder to find valuables. Most days they came back home with very little unless they picked through a badly damaged building, shoving aside rubble and ignoring corpses. And it was only going to get worse as the city started to rebuild.

On the following Saturday they returned from an early morning raid and cleaned up a little before Sophie showed up. She chatted leisurely as she drove across the city, looking much more relaxed than last time. After a quarter hour they pulled up to a surprisingly intact house near the bay. A generator hummed nearby as Sophie knocked on the door.

It was opened by an older black woman with a small girl hiding behind her. The old woman greeted Sophie pleasantly and ushered all of them in.

In the entryway the older woman studied Eliot and Parker.

“You didn't bring me two more mouths, did you?” the woman asked Sophie suspiciously.

Parker inhaled sharply, freezing, and Eliot’s eyes darted to Sophie, again wondering if this was a trap.

Sophie, though, just chuckled. “No, no. This is Eliot and Parker. They're my associates and take fine care of themselves.”

The woman smiled a wrinkly smile and Parker let out her breath.

“Hi there,” the woman said, sticking out a hand, which Eliot shook. Her grip was surprisingly firm to match her surprisingly sharp gaze behind thick glasses. “You can call me Nana. All the kids do.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Eliot said, and Nana beamed at him.

“Where you from, Eliot?” she asked.

Parker shuffled nervously at Eliot’s elbow. “I think I'd rather not tell you,” Eliot said apologetically, and Nana, to her credit, didn't press it.

They heard footsteps on the stairs from further in the house, and an older kid stuck his head into the entryway.

“Nana, Freema’s crying again,” he said, a look of distaste clear on his face.

Nana sighed. “I'll be right there. Pardon me,” she said to her guests, shooing away the little girl still clutching at her housecoat before going back into the house. “I'll tell him you're here.”

The little girl followed Nana after shyly looking away from the guests, and the older kid came closer.

“Sophie! Hi,” he said.

“Hello,” Sophie said kindly, if a little distantly.

“Did you need something? I got a new computer. I can help!” He seemed eager to please, and his voice was far more whiny than any fifteen year old kid’s voice should be. Eliot automatically disliked him.

“No, I'm here to see Hardison,” Sophie said.

The kid scowled a little, his ears turning pink. “Aw, he's just a kid. I can help you more than he can. He doesn't even know the difference between the different kinds of computer monitor—”

“Thank you, Colin, but I'm here to see Hardison,” Sophie interrupted, annoyance beginning to show on her face.

“It's Chaos. People call me Chaos now,” Colin corrected. Eliot rolled his eyes.

“That's a stupid name,” he said before he could help himself.

Colin looked furious and turned his attention to Eliot. “It is _not._ How old are you, thirteen?”

Eliot bristled. “I'm nearly seventeen, kid, back off.”

“Yeah?” Colin asked rhetorically, stretching his back to emphasize the couple of inches he had on Eliot. “Well you're the size of a third grader.”

Eliot growled. “Kid, I could snap you in half and I will if you keep talkin’.”

He felt Parker at his elbow and knew without looking that she was glaring daggers over his shoulder at Colin.

“Sophie!” a voice called, and everyone turned to see a kid, maybe twelve, round the corner quickly.

Eliot blinked at the kid. He knew this kid.

The kid stopped in his tracks when he saw Eliot and Parker. “I know you,” he said.

“You're the kid we found our second day in the city,” Parker said.

“Alec,” Eliot said, remembering the kid’s name.

“You _know_ them?” Colin asked from behind Eliot, and Alec wrinkled his nose.

“Go away, Colin. These are _my_ friends,” he said, snottiness seeping through his voice.

“Sophie’s my friend, too!” Colin shouted.

“Is not! You're just in love with her. She's here to see _me,”_ Alec retorted.

Eliot snorted. This was gonna be good.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings in this chapter for: references to abuse by parental figures; descriptions of panic attacks/trauma meltdowns; discussions of animal (kaiju) death

Eliot whistled softly to himself and leaned closer to the bathroom mirror, studying his chin to see if he'd missed a spot shaving. He hadn't, and he turned on the tap, still feeling a little thrill when water actually flowed. Just over six months after the alien attack and the city had finally gotten around to fixing the water. It wasn't safe to drink, and that was a constant concern of him and Parker, but it made staying clean infinitely easier than when they could only bathe with bottled water too. 

His hair was almost long enough to tie back. Parker had offered to cut it for him the other day, but he was starting to like it. Maybe it would grow as long as hers. He tucked some behind his ears and turned off the water, flicking off the bathroom light as he left. 

“You ‘bout ready to go?” he asked, but he didn't see Parker in the bedroom. Odd. She usually lay sideways across her bed reading while he got ready to go in the mornings. “Park?” 

He did another once-over of the room, checking under the bed and on the far side of the wardrobe. He even looked up in case she was perched on top of the wardrobe or holed up in a vent, but he didn't see her. 

He stepped out of the room and down the hall, poking his head into the storeroom. Empty, except for their small pile of loot. He checked the closet. Nothing. 

On a whim he stepped back into the hallway and opened the hall closet. There she was, curled up in a ball on the floor, her arms wrapped tight around her legs, tear tracks on her cheeks. 

“Parker,” Eliot whispered. He knelt down and held out a hand, not touching her, just putting his hand into her field of vision and letting her come to him if she wanted. 

“I can't go back,” she whispered. 

“You're not going to,” Eliot reminded her. 

Parker shook her head, hard and fast, screwing her eyes closed. “I can't go back. I can't.” 

“I won't make ya,” Eliot said. 

“He hurt me,” she whispered, still again, and her arms tightened around her legs reflexively, for just a fraction of a second. 

Eliot stayed quiet. He knew that Archie was bad news, but Parker had never spoken much of the specifics. He sat on the floor, careful to leave enough room in the doorway for Parker to get past him if she needed to bolt. 

“He's gonna find me,” she whispered. 

“I won't let him,” Eliot said. “He's not getting you back.” 

Parker looked at him, her eye contact uncomfortably and surprisingly direct. “There's nothing left in the city,” she said, her voice sounding hollow. “There's nothing left to take. We can't stay here.” 

Eliot’s jaw tightened reflexively. She was right. Their shipments for Sophie had gotten smaller and less valuable, and this past week they'd probably taken just enough to cover Sophie's fees. The city was starting to come back to life, a handful of businesses setting back up and some people moving back in, but the scavengers were more or less done with the city. 

“They're gonna… they’re gonna find us and take us back,” Parker whispered, looking away again and hiccuping. “And Archie's gonna be mad.” She sounded terrified, but even worse, she sounded  _ resigned.  _ If what she feared happened, Eliot wasn't sure she would fight back. 

“Listen,” he said, leaning close. She looked at him, pain in her eyes. “We can't stay here, you're right.  _ But,” _ he said, holding up a hand when she started to crumple, “we’re not going back. We can go  _ anywhere.  _ We have fake documents. They're not gonna find us.” 

Parker watched him for a long minute, tears falling from her eyes and soaking her sleeve where her chin rested on her arm. Eliot held out a hand and she cautiously took it, unfolding herself to slump down and lay her head in his lap. He gently ran his fingers through her hair and she cried for a few minutes. 

Finally her shivers and hiccups subsided and Eliot hummed a question at her. She sat up and sniffled, swiping her sleeve over her eyes before nodding. 

“You wanna stay in today?” Eliot asked. 

Parker shook her head slowly. “I wanna try a bank again.” 

Eliot grinned. “Let's hope it goes better than last time.” 

He stood and helped her up, and then heard one of the cell phones ringing in the bedroom. He frowned. No one called them unless it was an emergency. 

Eliot rushed to find the phone and fumbled as he hit the speaker button. “Hello?” 

_ “Eliot, it’s me,”  _ Sophie said. She sounded frazzled. 

“What's wrong?” 

_ “It happened again. Another attack.”  _

Eliot turned until he could see Parker, standing in the bedroom door, her eyes wide and still pink from crying. He felt like he couldn't breathe. “Attack?” he asked dumbly, though he was pretty sure what Sophie meant. 

_ “Another alien. In Manila,”  _ Sophie said. 

Parker froze. 

“Oh,” Eliot said. 

_ “It fell early this morning. I'm already assembling a team to send to the Philippines.”  _

Parker was nodding before Sophie was even finished speaking. 

“We want in,” Eliot said. 

_ “Are you sure?”  _

Parker was still nodding. 

“We're in,” Eliot said decisively. 

They were  _ never  _ going back. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading! as always, feedback is much appreciated! 
> 
> this is part 1 of at least 3 works planned in this au, revolving around drift-compatible platonic eliot and parker. subscribe to the series to read more when i eventually update :)


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